MARINES
A bent-winged, big-nosed Corsair fighter slid down the South Pacific sky to the Bougainville runway. A balding, disgruntled pilot hopped out. Marine Major Gregory Boyington had just shot down his 25th Jap plane, over Rabaul.
But he had expected better hunting: he was still one short of tying, two short of beating the U.S. record of 26 enemy planes shot down, a record held jointly by World War II's Captain Joe Foss and World War I's Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. "Pappy" Boyington stomped off the jungle-hemmed field, vowing that he and his Corsair would...