by Bob Alvis

special to Aerotech News

Several years ago, I was the recipient of a box of books about aviation that a friend had found at an estate sale.

I put the box in the garage, and it wasn’t until a couple weeks later that I looked at the contents. Most of the time these types of books have very little “wow” factor and usually end up in a donation bin somewhere.

When I was about halfway through this box, one book really caught my eye. Being a student of military history, I knew a bit about Masajiro “Mike” Kawato and his World War II exploits as a Japanese fighter ace.

The book, Flight into Conquest, was the personal account of his World War II exploits — as he saw it— and in the 1970s, he started to travel the air show circuits selling and promoting his book.

At some point the book and its stories started to get real scrutiny, as some people started to question many of the claims.

The one story that had people poking around was the book’s claim that Mike had shot down legendary World War II Marine Ace Greg “Pappy” Boyington. Historians looking at that Jan. 3, 1944, mission where Boyington was shot down did agree that Mike was in that 40-plane formation that tangled with Pappy’s famous Black Sheep, but that he could not have been the one that shot him down.

In a strange twist, it wasn’t long until Mike and Pappy found themselves together. Mike said that he had contacted NBC, which was producing the Baa Baa Black Sheep television program, and a meet up happened in Burbank not long after.

Funny that the combatants had no problem with each other and became good friends over time and maybe it was their shared experience as POWs that formed their bond. Many times, they would share a table at air shows and events and sit side-by-side autographing books.

After some time, Mike’s record was researched and it was found that he only had one and a quarter victories in World War II, but in his book he was claiming 18 victories. Details like this start to chip away at all the other accounts in the book, and that’s sad. I’m sure many of those details are correct, but now they have a cloud over them.

That being said, I must point out that in the strange world of friendships that Pappy, with all his victories and being a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, never called out Mike for any of his writing and never debunked that it was Mike who shot him down. Maybe it was the fact that Captain Kawato had been in the scrap that day — just another reason their friendship endured.

Many times, I have been at events where questioning and differences of opinion about aerial exploits have come into question, but I always follow one common rule— let the men who flew the planes and fought the battles be the ones to question the actions and share the truths. Too many times, we younger generations can have our favorites, and we can push to have different outcomes, but that serves no purpose when it comes to making sure the facts are correct and that the legends really are legends.

So where does that leave us now with this story? Taking it all in where we are now in history, all we can really say is Major Boyington and Captain Kawato were best friends and no matter what the record shows that’s all that matters to the outcome of this story.

Now, another strange twist to this story was how did this book find its way into my garage from an estate sale? When I opened it up, some papers fell out and after looking at the book, I started in on the papers. Come to find out, this book came from an optometrist who was doing Mike’s eye exams to keep his pilot’s license current. Pretty cool since I have Mike’s signature on many of the documents!

In working on more air shows and events I can count in my life, I was blessed to cross paths with Pappy at some air shows and have some books signed by him. So now on my bookshelf the two share space side-by-side just like they did later in life, and I’m pretty sure late at night there is some pretty intense hanger flying going back and forth between the two men who took to the skies in World War II .

Until next time, Bob out . . .