They Told Him Never Dogfight a Zero – He Did It Anyway

As we started the push over, about 20 or 30 Japs jumped us and it started a dog fight that spread all over the sky and maybe 10 mi by 10 miles or something like that. And Japs got on my tail. Uh, and then I went into this cloud to get away from the jaff on my tail and came back out and here was a here was a zero right in front of me.
Today we’ll hear from Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mayo Hank Bourgeoa. Bourgeoa served in World War II as a Marine Corps fighter pilot and was a member of the Black Sheep squadron. The Black Sheep became famous for their numerous successes over the Solomon Islands and their leader, Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Papy Boington.
Hank Bourgeois joined the Marine Corps on September 1st, 1941, his 20th birthday. The war hadn’t started yet. And at that time the um the flight training course to become get your wings and become an officer was about 18 to 20 months. When the war started they cut out all the crap and we went down. I was out of there in June in 6 months and I got my wings uh my and went to the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant.
We went out to um uh North Island, California, brought San Diego for fighter training and finished that uh in about the 1st of December 1942. And then they put us on a a lure lane a transport right to the New Calonia and from there up to Esprito Santos New He’s group and I joined VMF 122 when I arrived there in late January 1943 and uh that was my first combat tour and we were on Guad Canal with um flying F4F uh Wildcats.
And there we didn’t have too many airplanes and the experienced pilots got all the combat flights. But the only thing I did was uh we had a photographic uh Wildcat and F4 F7 I believe. Uh and I flew two or three missions over Munda to take photographs and couple of times the airplane was riddled.
And the only other mission I can remember in that was a strafing mission when the Navy uh damaged I think it was a destroyer uh in the straits there and we went up to strafe it. The second combat tour was interesting because we got brand new not brand new but we got 18 Corsairs and uh that was a great airplane.
Uh, and I’ll I’ll never forget first time sitting in the cockpit with a handbook reading it and then it says, you know, push this switch, push that switch, push that button, and then and you know, the mechanics there, he didn’t see this airplane before either. And then that big engine started to run. God, it was a thrill.
Um, had about maybe six or seven hours in that airplane. Um and the Japs were from their submarines were um launching uh sea planes at night to fly reconnaissance flight over the naval har the harbor there in Asprito Santos. So they asked for a volunteer to go up and try and and shoot this thing down. So being young and enthused, I says, “I’ll go.
” And uh so I took off one night at dark and they trying to vect me around with the radar. And they they’d get me under this thing and it was a dark night. You couldn’t see it, but I could see the against the stars, but I couldn’t slow down. It flew so slow, you know, it kept passing under it and it vetoed me around and came back.
I never did get a chance to shoot at it, but um that was a thrill in in my first mission in a Corsair. Uh we were escorting uh dive SBD dive bombers up to Bogenville. If I remember, there were about 18 dive bombers and I think we had 16 Corsairs in the air flying uh cover for the uh dive bombers.
And um we got up there was a big thunderstorm there. They were really after the shipping and there was a big thunderstorm over the harbor. So the the alternate was to hit the airfield. And as we dive bombers started to push over about 20 or 30 japs uh jumped us and it started the dog fight that you know dog fights spread all over the sky and maybe 10 miles by 10 miles or something like that.
Japs got on my tail. Lundine, Captain Lundine was my leader and um he went after a [ __ ] and [ __ ] went after me and then um we got separated. Uh and then I went into this cloud to get away from the [ __ ] on my tail and came back out and was there was a zero right in front of me.
I mean, you know, maybe 100 yards at the most just sitting there. I blasted him and uh he blew up and then I went back into the cloud because they were after me again. And and this went on I don’t know how long but um it was in and out of this cloud and and after you shot two zeros down that day uh I came out and there was nobody around.
There wasn’t an airplane in the sky and so I returned to base. Uh that was my first combat mission where airto-air actually uh somebody was shooting at me and I’m shooting at them. The first Corsair we got were the F4U1s and that’s before they screwed them up with extra armor and and all that. They were powerful. They were lightweight.
They had problems with oil leaks u and hydraulic leaks. But you I can’t I just can’t I I have about 350 hours in Corsair’s and I could get in a Corsair right now today and fly it. And u the the earlier models were unbelievably uh maneuverable. Uh you could bank and turn and and pull hard things, climb fast, go fast.
And uh you know who I really praise is the mechanics on the ground. We’d come back from missions. They work all night long uh getting these airplanes ready to go in the morning. Uh they might exchange wings or tails or put a new engine or carburetor magneto or what it was. But I never I never had a bad airplane.
Um it’s kind of interesting. There’s a picture in in that book over there. side number Corsair 13 on Monday. Uh I seem to have flown that Corsair side number 13 most of the times. Uh and you can see it has a bunch of holes of it and it was a runabbacker that got shot up in that airplane.
But that airplane always seemed to be a little faster, a little smoother, a little better trimmed than all the rest of the airplanes. And you it’s hard to explain. It’s it’s like racing cars, I guess. Some of great, some are not so great. We usually had about 18 airplanes assigned uh at one time and you you had 24 pilots or 26, whatever it was.
And um you rarely had more than 16 airplanes in commission. uh some of them were on the ground, you know, waiting parts or whatever it was and um Frank Walton would assign the airplanes, you know, and assign your airplane number 22, 13 or 7 or whatever it happened to be and that’s the airplane you flew that day.
Uh and uh but you didn’t nobody had an airplane assigned to him uh specifically. I’ve read some articles where people like Walsh, I believe, claims that he had his Corsair all the time. Whether he did or not, hard to believe. Uh but we didn’t. We flew whatever was available. the zero. Um, you know, we were u briefed early uh that uh it was a, you know, fast maneuverable airplane and that you just didn’t get involved in a dog fight where you’re trying to outturn him because there’s no way you could do it. You’d always try and keep
speed and dive away if he was on your tail. But it had a one vulnerability. It had no self-sealing gas tanks or armor plate. And if you could get a burst of fire into that airplane, it was going to go down. John Bolt, he he got interested in in armament, how how you load the uh rounds in a machine gun.
And then he came up with I can’t remember like a incendiary armor piercing a tracer and something or other. It was brand new concept and he spent a lot of time with the ordinance people making sure the guns were all zeroed in at about 200 yards of whatever it was. And I tell you, when you hit a Japanese Zero or any airplane with 650 caliber machine guns, that is a lot of firepower because, man, they fire so fast.
You just the airplane would explode. You’d knock a wing off or tail off or kill the pilot. I guess my attitude and and and the people in my flight was um you know, kill the bastards. uh you know and we talked about do you shoot them in a parachute? I couldn’t do that. Uh but you know we talked about uh and uh but as long as you hit the airplane, knocked them down, got the pilot out, everybody was happy.
Um but I know there were some people that um uh you know shot at them and in a parachute in the water, things like that. But u and there was some tragedies. Um you know like uh Bill Casease uh in one one mission in VMF122 um we were escorting B24s uh and um some unexpected Corsairs came in to join the escort and he he didn’t know there were Corsairs and he just pulled over and fired at one.
Fortunately, uh it uh he didn’t do any real damage other than some holes in the airplane. But then then we lost Alexander and VMF1 214 when he mistakenly shot at a um one of our PT boats and they shot back and and knocked him down. And there was another mission where I was my division was assigned to to strafe some Japanese island bases that were really deserted.
But lousy weather coming back and the last man in the division saw a what looked like a barge going through the water and he just pulled off and started strafing it. But it was ours. and uh you know you make mistakes. I joined VMF122 when I arrived there in late January 1943 and uh that was my first combat tour and I flew two combat tours with VMF 122 and then that squadron was rotated home.
you had to have in those days three uh combat tours and then you were eligible to go home. And I was I was in a pool of pilots and at that time Boington was designated to be the commanding officer of newly designated 214. And he went through the pool and he picked out pilots who had combat experience. And since I’d had two combat tours and shot down some japs, I was one of the people that he picked.
Uh and that’s how I became a member of VMF 214, the black sheep. When you were uh assigned to 214, what were your initial impressions of Major Boington? Had you heard about him before? Well, when when I went over to the islands, he was he was a senior officer on the transport. I first met him um just before Christmas 1943 and there was always parties and Boeing was there.
I didn’t know who he was at the time. He was just introduced as Greg and uh that was the first time I met him. And then when we were uh transferred to go overseas, it turned out that he was the senior officer in the pilot replacement pool aboard the ship. And um that’s when I I first got to to know him cuz he liked to play bridge and I like to pay bridge.
And so we you know it was 17 or 18 days getting over to New Calonia. So, we played a lot of bridge on the way. Uh, he had bought along a case of scotch whiskey for some f general friend out there, but I think he drank it all up on the way. So, and that’s when I I liked him, you know, but um when he we got on the islands out there, he he seemed to do a lot of drinking and he he really was not an administrator.
uh on the ground and in and um whatever squadron was in, it was really run by either executive officer or some administrative officer and um in the black sheep squadron, it was Frank Walton who was intelligence officer and he really ran the the ground part of the squadron and um and Boon just seemed to, you know, be kind of placid and drunk most of the time.
Sometimes when he took off in the morning, he just staggered out an airplane. But uh in the air, God, I tell you, it was something I can remember um flying dawn patrols and with him. And you would go up there and it was really nothing to do but just circle around for 2 hours and hoping if the Japanese came down to to you know bomb m you might get something and it was nothing to do.
So he’d get bored with making circles and we’d start doing loops and rolls and over wing overs and anything else just to and if God by the time he ended up he was sweating like mad trying to keep up with him but uh he was a brilliant pilot very aggressive in anything he did on the ground handtohand fight or anything like that on the lure going over uh there was a marine raider battalion being transferred out to the Pacific.
And every day up on the recreation deck, u they would practice handtohand fighting and boxing, everything. And he was right in the middle of it all the time. Uh he whether his opponent was a corpal or sergeant or another major, it didn’t make any difference. He’d do his best to to beat him to the ground. He just seemed to have a a will to win in everything on the ground, you know, fighting organ in the air with an airplane.
And he certainly in the airplane uh field was extremely capable pilot. Uh you know, he he was really something kind of interesting. Yeah. Uh that combat tour we never even though we supposedly had a division u you know I had a I was a division leader being an experienced combat pilot and I had a wingman Bill Hire and then um two other wing uh second section and they were that’s the way we went up and um but when we got up there you never had enough airplanes and you’d get a mission in the morning or a miss we usually flew two missions a day Uh and uh
he’d go and Frank Walton would say, “Hey, look, you’re going to fly this, you’re going to fly that.” And and Boon had a reputation for having extremely good eyesight, which I did in those days. And uh Boon was anxious to um to, you know, find Japs to shoot down because sometimes we go up on fighter missions and sweeps and there wouldn’t be a Japanese in the air.
So one day he says bourgeois you are leading the mission today and he was flying on my wing and we went up u uh and that’s the way he was you know he was aggressive and he wanted to get into some sort of action um and that day we went up there and and uh we were right over Bogenville area and I’m looking up and there are two japs way up high and there two japs way down low and And um I I told the leader of the other division, I said, “You take the two up there and I’ll take the two down there.” And we rolled over.
We never could catch these two guys. They they went into a cloud and disappeared. And when we got back, Boon chewed my fanny out. He says, “Why didn’t you just stay there and let them come at us so we could get them?” And um but uh that’s the way he was. He was really aggressive. when when you get in combat with people, uh you’re depending upon each other.
Uh and um they’re your friends. I mean, uh I don’t think there was anybody that um did anything, you know, like robbed a bank or um chased girls cuz there’s no girls out there. But um you you become a it’s hard to explain. I guess it’s like a football team that works together. Uh and they develop a comradeship where they want to win, they want to do well.
And uh in in VMF 2122 and 214, it was the same way, but it seemed to be more so in 214. Uh, and and I attribute that to um we had about three or four singers that every night, you know, after the flying was over, the doctor would give us a couple of brandies and you’d sit around and and and sing. And um and some of these guys were pretty good.
uh and um that you know you sit around close and and working together it uh it’s kind of impressive when a squadron was organized and and we all knew we were uh going to be assigned to uh BMF 214. We got together and talked and and you know we ought to have a a squatter name and Frank Walton encouraged that and the guy says why don’t we call ourselves Boington’s bastards and Walton says no no he says the papers will not put that in the papers back home.
You got to think about something else. So they argued about it for a while and and they saw that it was Boington’s black sheep and um which you know the bastard stripe type thing and they had um finally asked an artist uh he was a marine correspondent I believe to draw up a shield with uh with the bastard stripe and you know the rest of the thing and u so that’s how you know it was accept accepted and and it’s been that way ever since.
I was only there in the first combat tour. Okay, that was from September about 6 to October whenever we finished the first combat tour. And I don’t remember any correspondence or any, you know, big deal. Uh at that time, Frank Walton, and I didn’t know this, was sending all kinds of press releases back to the United States, everybody’s hometown.
In fact, he sent him to the Times Pikuna in New Orleans. And uh God, I when I came home, I was a hero and I didn’t didn’t even know what was going on. And you know, um so he did that to everybody. And I think that stirred up interest in Boon because he began to you know, his first mission he shot down five zeros and then got a few more and began to build uh you know, his uh his lead, his quantity as that is.
and and Walton um you know would always enter that in in every press release. So and I think that stirred the interest of correspondents and when the squadron went back for its second combat tour then that’s when theyounded him up there the day Bington uh got his five. I was I was in that mess.
I shot at things but I really didn’t do anything. There was another big melee. But one thing that came out of that I’d like to you was um when the fight broke up uh and you scattered all over, you know, you don’t know where they are and I’m headed back to Monday and um all of a sudden traces came by my airplane.
I’m looking in the rear view mirror and there’s a zero back there. So, and you know, I was wasn’t going too fast, but I throttled everything forward, you know, full throttle and everything. And and uh this zero was closing up on me and uh he’s shooting. We didn’t hit the airplane and u so one of the things you do in a in a Corsair to get away from a zero, you dive because you can outspeed him.
So I dove down on the deck and this guy stayed right with me and um and you know I got every make this airplane go fast. You close the all the flaps, the cooling flaps and the oil flaps and everything else and he’s still sneaking up on me. And every once in a while he’d lob in some cannon shells or whatever it was.
And I realized I wasn’t headed back towards my base. I was going at an angle away for it and I’m getting getting kind of low on gas and uh I decided I’m going to have to fight this guy. So I you know I’m ready to turn around and do whatever I can and all of a sudden the zero pulls off and flies away. In 1973, after I retired from the Marine Corps, I was working for the Singer Company in one of the aerospace divisions and they sent me to Japan to help one of the Mitsubishi divisions that was producing our gyros and things
to plan for the future. Their vice president of marketing was a retired uh Japanese Air Force general Suo. and we got to talking about the war and he and I became friendly because he likes to hunt and I like to hunt and in fact he he got me a custommade shotgun while I was there which was impossible for somebody to do and um so you know we talked about the war and and he’d been invited back to the United States to New Jersey to view our factory and how we did things and I said bring you a log book and I’ll checked my log book and we
went back. We looked at a log book and that was a guy that day that was trying to shoot me down. And it was interesting. We be we became lifelong friends. I took him duck and goose hunting in Maryland on the Eastern Shore. And that night we went to dinner and um I’d been picking up the tabs all the time. So he picked up the tab.
We had a few snorts and and dinner was over. He turned to me and he says, “Hanks on.” He says, “You know, I’m sure glad I didn’t shoot you down.” In 1976, a popular television series was produced, loosely based on Papy Boington’s book, and members of the squadron continued to gather at reunions for decades after World War II.
Out of the 54 in the f first into the two combat tours, we’re getting down to a few. In fact, uh, I wonder who’s going to fly the last mission. I hope it’s me. That was Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mayo Hank Bgeoa. Warriors in their own words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation.
Thank you for watching and by doing so, honoring those who’ve served. This program was produced by Evergreen Podcasts and documentary.tv. I’m your host, Ken Harbaugh. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please comment, share, and subscribe below.