TAKING THE BAIT - Original Pencil Drawing
by Richard Taylor
Sunday 17 October, 1943 and the sight of Major Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington and the F4U Corsairs of VMF-214 calmly circling their airfield on Bougainville was too much for the Japanese. Sending up a large force of fighters to deal with the intruders proved, however, a mistake. In the fierce battle that followed, Boyington and his pilots destroyed 20 enemy aircraft without loss.
Bougainville, the largest island in the Solomons, shares its name with a beautiful, thorny vine named after Louis de Bougainville, a French Admiral. Aptly, in 1943, the island was prickly too, a thorn in the side of the Allies battling the Japanese who’d invaded shortly after Pearl Harbor. Building airfields, establishing defences and anchorages from which they could dominate the entire south-west Pacific, it would take three years of bitter fighting to overcome fierce Japanese resistance. A few enemy units remained at large in remote jungle areas until Japan’s final surrender in August 1945.
Into the fray stepped Major Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington and the men of newly-formed VMF214, a rag-tag squadron of unassigned pilots that included both experienced combat pilots and fresh-faced rookies new from training. There were no mechanics and few reliable planes but under Boyington’s leadership that was all about to change. Within months he’d moulded his bunch of ‘black sheep’ into one of the most successful and feared air combat units in the US Marine Corps whilst Boyington, a veteran of the AVG Flying Tigers in China, would be propelled into becoming the highest-scoring USMC Ace of the war.
The Signatures
Richard's superb new drawing 'Taking the Bait' has been matted and framed to full conservation standards with the original autographs of SIXTEEN USMC Fighter Pilots, including Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington!
- Colonel Gregory 'Pappy' Boyington MOH
- Lieutenant Colonel W. Thomas Emrich
- Colonel Edwin A. Harper
- Lieutenant Colonel William D. Heier
- Lieutenant Colonel James J. Hill
- Captain Fred S. Losch
- Brigadier General Bruce J. Matheson
- Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. McClurg
- Lieutenant Colonel John F. Bolt
- Lieutenant Colonel Henry M. Bourgeois
- Colonel Henry Allen 'Hank' McCartney
- Major Edwin L. Olander
- Captain Glenn Bowers
- Major Marion 'Rusty' March
- Lieutenant Alan 'Al' Marker
- Lieutenant Sanders 'Sandy' Sims
- Media:
- Original Pencil
- Size:
- 25.75 x 30 inches
- Release Date:
- 9/2023
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