First Blue: The Story of World War II Ace Butch Voris and the Creation of the Blue Angels

Opening with a graphic account of a mid-air collision, this bio of Voris, who founded the Navy's famed aerial acrobatic team, gets the job done, but without the group's pluck and aplomb. Before the founding, Voris flew two combat tours as a fighter pilot in the South Pacific, from 1942 to 1944. Among the numerous descriptions of his wartime experiences, the book includes accounts of his first landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, his first aerial combat and his participation in the aerial melee known as ""The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot""--in which 300 hundred Japanese planes were shot down. Wilcox (Black Aces High) presents vivid interviews with Voris himself about this period (""This voice... came on the radio and said 'Shut up and die like a man.' ...That's the kind of attitude people had... Shut up. We got our own fight to deal with...""). In April 1946, Voris was tapped, as part of a Navy postwar public relations campaign, to form the Navy's flight exhibition team--The Blue Angels. A landing gear collapse upon landing, the use of a captured Japanese Zero fighter for simulated aerial dogfights, and the death of one of his wartime comrades who crashed into the ground during air show acrobatics are all covered, along with the recruitment and the development of acrobatic maneuvers. Relinquishing command of the Blue Angels in 1947, Voris did stints in Korea, with the re-formed Angels, and later worked for Grumman and NASA. His mid-century pilot's life comes through loud and clear here, as does the Navy's internal workings--and those marvelous planes.