Black Sheep Squadron

The "Whistling Death" F4U Corsair planes are the actual stars of this movie, the best combat planes ever with killing ratio 11:1 in their short times during 1943-1945. And VMF-214 Black Sheep Squadron is just the legend Ace Squadron with high killing ratio (average 5+) during the pacific war with Pappy Boyington as great fighter and leader. I watched this series when I was a kid, and always in my memory ever since. I even collect the F4U Corsair model planes afterward. I am still trying to watch the FIRST episode the "Flying Misfits" a.k.a episode zero, so if anyone know how to get it kindly advice. This is a good series of the pacific war, yes it dramatized and fictionalized events, but it is very nice to see many REAL Corsairs in formation! Great respect to Pappy Boyington and VMF-214 for your great dedication, you folks did a great job!

Black Sheep Squadron is a series that is fascinating to watch, over and over. I first started watching it on the History Channel and have numerous tapes that are wearing out from use. These are quite interesting since they contain the comments of the original Black Sheep members, as well as some by Conrad.

The stories, for the most part, are quite interesting and the acting is top-notch. Conrad is a seasoned actor going back many years and does very well in all sorts of roles, including this one. Clyde Kusatsu in his role as a captured Zero pilot was believable and has been in many other movies since. The regulars...Dana Elcar, Robert Ginty, W. K. Stratton, Simon Oakland, James Whitmore, Jr. were well-placed in their roles.

With the passing of Robert Conrad and H&I showing the show again I wanted to comment on it. This is one of the first shows I remember watching because my Grandfather served with the actual Boyington during WW2 and we watched several eps shortly before he died.

I read Boyington's autobiography when I was a young teen. Needless to say the show isn't accurate, and was said by former members of the unit in the 80s at a reunion and the former members expressed great displeasure at Boyington. My Grandfather's overlap of service was limited as he was in the Army Air Corps and knew him from base overlap and because he was a mechanic which was as important as pilots because of limited replacement parts.

So while the show was inaccurate, it was generally inspiring (I believe one of the reasons I enlisted when I was 17) and entertaining. Today if I want history, I've got the History and Military Channels, so all one needs to do is expect it to entertain which it does. I'd make it akin to MASH which certainly wasn't real either, but was entertaining.

What a lot of people won't remember is the time period when this was on being post-Vietnam and there was a negative attitude towards the service that post 9/11 isn't remembered by many (I served in the late 80s and Desert Storm and the military was viewed positively in my opinion by most then, but not as high as after 9/11).

so watch it for what it's meant to be, entertainment.

The tales of Boyington's Black Sheep may not have been the most historically accurate, best written, or even best acted WW II series on television.

What it WAS, however, was an entertaining hour in front of the tube, with a likable cast & easy to like/care about characters.

The Bellisaro hand in the casting in easy to see, with a number of familiar faces that returned to become regulars or recurring characters on Magnum P.I.

In short, a usually enjoyable show that never failed to deliver exactly what you expected from it.

I watched Baa Baa Black sheep for the first time in 1983. I really liked the dislikable characters like Miklin and Colonel Lard who were good in their roles. The Japanese actor who played the ace Arachi was excellent. The atmosphere between the black sheep is often rivalry, humor, boxing fights against each other sometimes, teamwork with sense of duty and responsibility, also all the black sheeps share a big interest in women. Pappy is a hero like there have been a few during the second world, Conrad portrays him as a man liking his crew men and with sense of responsibility and huge courage.It is a great TV series for those interested in the aerial combat in the South Pacific.