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credit. Hank’s wife, Evelyn, was following his career from their home in New York.
    Next was Hank Bourgeois, called “Doctor Boo” by the squadron mates with whom he’d served his first two combat tours. Hank got hooked on flying early in life: his father had been instrumental in bringing air service to New Orleans and had a friend who owned a flying service in that area; as a result, young Henry had his first flight when he was seven, was in a crash at eleven, and soloed at thirteen.
    Hank had been in his last year as an aeronautical engineering major at Louisiana State University when he went into the service. He had two combat tours at Guadalcanal and two Japanese planes to his credit when he joined the Black Sheep.
    I asked him how he’d got the name “Dr. Boo.” He told me he’d lost his Communications after having been shot up on a mission and ended up flying in exactly the opposite direction when he attempted to return to base. He’d put his plane down in a lagoon in the center of a small island, where he’d been picked up by natives.
    â€œSomehow they got the idea that I was the number one Marine.” said Hank. “They took me to the chief and then to a leanto where an obviously pregnant native woman was lying on a mat.
    â€œâ€˜Baby no come,’ they said.
    â€œI got out my first aid kit and gave them all my sulfa pills, telling them to give her one twice a day. When I was picked up the next day by the flying boat, a Navy corpsman said they’d send down a doctor.
    â€œThe doctor reported back that the baby had been born O.K. and that the Chief was so happy they named the baby ‘Boo Ja Wa,’ which was as close as they could come to saying my name.”
    So it was “Doctor Boo” for Bourgeois from then on.
    The other two combat-experienced veterans with Japanese planes to their credit were Bill Case and John Begert. Begert’s education (hewas a journalism major) had been interrupted after two years of college, one each at Kansas and Texas. He’d had two combat tours at Guadalcanal and had downed one Zero.
    Case had completed two years at Oregon State University. He also had a Zero to his credit from his Guadalcanal combat tours. He had a wife, Ellen, waiting for him in Vancouver.
    â€œLong Tom” Emrich, John “Blot” Bolt, and Ed “Harpo” Harper were called “the Quartermaster Kids.” They were continually collecting souvenirs of all kinds and shipping them home by the crate. We were sure that their families were building warehouses to store the stuff.
    Bolt, from the University of Florida, was the most energetic member of the squadron. In addition to his quartermaster activities, he was always turning up with a gunnysack full of fish he’d dynamited; he’d organize pig roasts and beer parties; he made Cook’s Tours around the islands whenever he had time off. He thoroughly investigated and tested every new gadget or technique reported or developed.
    Harpo was a serious, studious individual who learned a lesson from every experience and filed it in his memory for use as needed. He’d completed two years at the University of Idaho.
    Long Tom was the squadron’s Don Juan, with a head of rich, thick black hair that required his constant attention. His two years at Wentworth Military Academy also made him a walking encyclopedia on all the new military scoop, usually far fetched. “The Germans have a new plane that weighs 9,875 pounds with a speed of 782.5 miles per hour,” he’d say. “Climbs 5,000 feet a minute …”
    At 26, Bob “Meathead” Bragdon was one of the older men, having graduated from Princeton in 1939 as a psychology major. An all-round athlete, he’d been on the boxing, track, rugby, and baseball teams. We called him the “Princeton Steelworker.” He was positive he’d never amount to a damn. He had a glib, facile manner of