Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

426 Pacifica Military History
Note: The following article is excerpted from the book The Jolly
Rogers: The Story of Tom Blackburn and Navy Fighting Squadron
VF-17 by Tom Blackburn with Eric Hammel. The book is currently
available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition published by Pacifica
Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.
COMMAND
by Tom Blackburn with Eric Hammel
Copyright 1997 © by James Blackburn and Eric Hammel
John Thomas Blackburn, the son and brother of professional Navy
officers, graduated from Annapolis in 1933, grudgingly served his
obligatory two years in the surface fleet, and, at the first
opportunity,volunteered for flight training. He was a fighter pilot all
the way—by choice and temperament.
When war broke out, Lieutenant Blackburn was teaching tactics to
novice fighter pilots at the Navy’s new fighter-training center at Opa-
Locka, Florida. He asked to be returned to a carrier squadron, was
refused, but eventually wangled orders to form and command Carrier
Escort Fighter Squadron (VGF) 29, and he led it during the first day of
the invasion of North Africa (during which he was forced to ditch after
a radio failure left him far from the fleet without fuel). On returning to
the United States, Lieutenant Commander Blackburn was ordered to
form and command VF-17, the Navy’s first Vought F4U Corsair
squadron, for duty aboard the new fleet carrier Bunker Hill. The Corsair
needed to be tamed for carrier duty, and Blackburn and his crew of
youngsters did that, but the Hellcat was coming on strong and it
was decided to put VF-17 ashore in the Solomons to avoid the hassle
of keeping the Corsairs maintained from a supply line otherwise
dedicated to Grumman F6F Hellcats.
VF-17’s first tour was in mid and late 1944, out of one of Munda’s
satellite fields. In covering the Torokina landings and associated
operations, Tommy Blackburn destroyed four Japanese aircraft,