Name of Aircraft: Lucybelle and number 86

Arlington National Cemetery

180 Landing of the United States Marine Corps Service History

Grave marker image for (GREGORY BOYINGTON).

Gregory (Pappy) Boyington, the Marine flying ace of World War II who commanded the famous Black Sheep Squadron, shot down 28 Japanese planes and won the Medal of Honor, died here this morning at a hospice for cancer patients. He was 75 years old.

Mr. Boyington, a native of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, was a hero even before the United States entered World War II. As a Marine first lieutenant in 1941, he was persuaded to resign from the service and join the Flying Tigers, Gen. Claire Chennault's American vounteer group in China. While with that unit, he was credited with shooting down six Japanese planes. Ended War as a Prisoner

After the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the United States into the war, Mr. Boyington rejoined the Marine Corps, was soon promoted to major and, despite surgeons' prediction that a broken leg would end his combat flying, later molded a group of pilots rejected by other squadrons into the Black Sheep, a crack unit that operated in the central Solomon Islands in 1943-44.

Major Boyington spent the war's final year and a half as a captive of the Japanese, after his plane, riddled by bullets, crashed in Rabaul harbor on the Pacific island of New Britain in January 1944. The day he was captured, he was credited with his 26th confirmed kill, more than any other American aviator except Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, in World War I. Major Boyington's record was later adjusted to 28 planes shot down, a total that was exceeded by other American fliers as the war went on.



GREGORY P BOYINGTON

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