Book Review: The Jolly Rogers: The Story OF Tom Blackburn And Navy Fighting Squadron VF-17
Zenith Press, 2006, Paperback.

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The F4U Corsair is undoubtedly one of the greatest warplanes ever created. To the Japanese it was known as the ‘Whistling Death’ because of the unique sounds created by this plane making attack runs. From the bent wings to the large Pratt-Whitney engine and the oversized Hamilton Standard propeller, the F4U Corsair is instantly recognizable by even the most novice of aviation watchers. Yet the Corsair was not without faults. From the poor visibility for the pilot directly ahead of him when on the ground or landing to the stiff landing gear which gave the Corsair its bounce on landing; the Navy decided that the plane was not carrier qualified and limited the distribution of the Corsair to Marine ground units. It was not till the British Royal Navy demonstrated that the Corsair could safely be flown off carriers that the United States Navy reconsidered its position. One of the first fighter squadrons to be formed to fly off carriers with the Corsair was Fighter Squadron 17 ‘The Jolly Rogers’ commanded by Tom Blackburn. The Jolly Rogers is the story of how Tom Blackburn came to command the squadron and its combat tour in the Solomon Islands area.

No history can truly be a discrete event or series of events that lie separated from the rest of time and The Jolly Rogers is no exception. The book starts out with Commander Blackburn’s own history prior to being given command of VF-17. As an Annapolis graduate and a career Navy officer; Tom Blackburn was one of the few officers ‘allowed’ to fly with VF-2 ‘The Fighting Chiefs’ which was an elite squadron composed of enlisted naval aviation pilots for the pre-war Navy. He was detached from VF-2 to become an instructor at NAS-Miami which was also known as Opa-Locka in January of 1941. This assignment was to be a mixed blessing for Commander Blackburn. The downside was that he was leaving one of the premier fighter squadrons of the Navy for training the hordes of incoming nuggets (fledgling pilots), but the upside was that while at Opa-Locka he could hone his skills in the arts of aerial warfare and, presumably, leadership over a group untested pilots. It could even be inferred that the Navy was using these assignments to groom the future squadron leaders for the coming war. However Tom Blackburn ran afoul of his boss at Opa-Locka. It appeared that Tom was too good of an instructor to ‘waste’ at sea. Fortunately for the Navy Tom did have a hidden ace up his sleeve. A friend of his was the detailing officer for Naval Air. One written request and Tom soon found himself commanding a fighter squadron, but not of the bigger units instead he was assigned to form and command Escort Fighting Squadron 29 (VGF-29) for duty aboard the escort carrier USS Santee.

VGF-29 was issued with the famous F4F-4 Wildcat built by the Grumman ‘iron works’ Aviation. It was during this time with VGF-29 that Tom Blackburn came the closest to losing his life. After a mission over the Torch beachhead looking for a non-existent Vichy French airfield a malfunction in the navigation equipment caused his flight of Wildcats to become lost and run out of fuel. Tom ditched at sea while the four other Wildcats made for the beach. Tom spent the next two days in a life raft waiting for rescue. It was a miracle that the task group the Santee was with spotted the man in the raft during refueling operations and rescued him. Adding to the miracle was that a trained observer could spot a man in a life raft about a mile at best. But when you added in the 10 foot swells running at the time than the only time the raft could be seen was at the top of the wave. Shortly there after, Tom Blackburn was detailed to form, commission and lead Fighting Squadron 17 to serve with Carrier Air Group 17 aboard the USS Bunker Hill, a brand new Essex class aircraft carrier.

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