Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

411 Pages·2002·1.78 MB·English

by  Robert Coram

Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by Robert Coram
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote brief passages in a review.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: March 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2777-5
To John Pennington: my mentor in the newspaper years,
my fellow traveler in the wilderness years,
and my inspiration forever.He died too soon.
Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Reminiscences
Part 1: FIGHTER PILOT
Chapter 1. Haunted Beginnings
Chapter 2. The Big Jock and the Presbytreian
Chapter 3. Fledgling
Chapter 4. K-13 and Mig Alley
Chapter 5. High Priest
Chapter 6. Pope John Goes Severely Supersonic
Chapter 7. Rat-Racing
Chapter 8. Forty-Second Boyd and the Tactics Manual
Part 2: ENGINEER
Chapter 9. Thermo, Entropy, and the Breakthrough
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11. The Sugarplum Fairy Spreads the Gospel
Chapter 12. Pull the Wings off and Paint It Yellow
Chapter 13. “I’ve Never Designed a Fighter Plane Before”
Chapter 14. Bigger-Higher-Faster-Farther
Chapter 15. Saving the F-15
Chapter 16. Ride of the Valkyries
Chapter 17. The Fighter Mafia Does the Lord’s Work
Chapter 18. A Short-Legged Bird
Chapter 19. Spook Base
Chapter 20. Take a Look at the B-I
Chapter 21. “This Briefing is for Information Purposes Only”
Chapter 22. The Buttonhook Turn
Part 3: SCHOLAR
Chapter 23. Destruction and Creation
Chapter 24. OODA Loop
Chapter 25. Reform
Chapter 26. The Great Wheel of Conspiracy
Chapter 27. Boyd Joins the Marines
Chapter 28. Semper Fi
Chapter 29. Water-Walker
Chapter 30. They Think I’m a Kook
Chapter 31. The Ghetto Colonel and the SecDef
Epilogue: El Cid Rides On
Appendix: “Destruction and Creation”
Sources
Bibliography
About the Author
Acknowledgments
RARELY has a writer approached a subject where so many people were so
anxious to help. This was not because of my winning ways and bubbling
personality; it was because John Boyd inspired such passionate feelings among
those who knew him and who wanted to be sure his story was told in the proper
fashion.
Researching this book brought me into frequent and lengthy contact with
the men who were close to Boyd: the Acolytes. The distance I always keep
between myself and the people I write about disappeared when I met these men.
For my more than two years of researching and writing this book, Franklin
“Chuck” Spinney was the “go to” person for everything I needed. Him I owe the
most. Chuck Spinney, Tom Christie, Pierre Sprey, Ray Leopold, Jim Burton, and
Mike Wyly are as fiery and idealistic today as they were back in the 1960s and
1970s and 1980s. For the endless hours they spent with me going over those
white-hot years—and for their friendship—I shall always be grateful.
Mary Boyd, Kathy Boyd, Jeff Boyd, and John Scott Boyd could not have
been more forthcoming during many talks about their family. Often it was
painful for everyone involved. Mary Ellen Holton, as Boyd’s executrix, was
particularly helpful in obtaining personal family papers.
It is a measure of the respect Boyd evoked that Vice President Dick Cheney
took time to talk about his old friend. The generosity of his comments added
much to the book.
Of the dozens of others who helped, a few must be singled out. Jack
Shanahan, a brilliant Air Force officer, spent months walking me through Air
Force history, Air Force culture, the subtleties of Officer Efficiency Reports
(ERs), the intricacies of air combat, and a hundred other details of Air Force life.
Grant Hammond was always willing to share the insights that came from
spending hundreds of hours with Boyd in the mid-1990s.
Vernon Spradling remains the institutional memory of the Fighter Weapons
School as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. He proves that memory does not have
to decline with age.
Ron Catton has the wisdom that comes from having a wild youth followed
by a distinguished Air Force career and a highly successful business career. His
guidance was invaluable.
Chet Richards is a consultant and lecturer on Boyd’s ideas as applied to
business. He has the keen logic of a mathematician and he saved me from many
mistakes.
Dr. Wayne Thompson at the Office of Air Force History provided
documents I might never have known about.
At Georgia Tech, Bob Harty, Marie McVay, Debbie Williamson, and Kathy
Tomajko brought depth and dimension to the chapter about Boyd’s two years at
that respected institution. And my friend Grady “Himself” Trasher spent hours
telling me of Tech as it was during his student days in the early 1960s.
Jim Stevenson knows all there is to know about airplanes. He shared his
knowledge.
For about thirty years, a group of men has met every Wednesday night in
the Officers Club at Fort Myer, across the river from Washington. In few other
places in America can you find a room filled with men who have made more of a
contribution to national defense than these men have. They are legends all. And
they are why I always timed my trips to Washington so I could be there on
Wednesday.
A few additional notes.
I happen to have the best literary agent in New York. Mel Berger of the
William Morris Agency gets the job done. Quickly.
This book covers a long and tumultuous time in American military history.
To insure accuracy, many people mentioned in the book have read part or all of
the manuscript. Any errors, however, are mine alone.
I edited the manuscript on St. Catherines Island. No writer ever had a better
place to work, and I am forever grateful to my good friend Royce Hayes, the
superintendent of that remote island off the Georgia coast.
Finally, my deepest appreciation as always is to my wife, Jeannine Addams.
My life has been altogether different because of her.
Prologue
Reminiscences
ON March 20, 1997, a somber crowd gathered in the Old Post Chapel at
Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. They
came to attend the memorial service for Colonel John Richard Boyd, United
States Air Force, retired.
Winter often lingers in the hills of northern Virginia. And on that Thursday
morning a cold rain and overcast skies caused many in the crowd to wrap their
winter coats tighter and to hurry for the doors of the chapel.
Full military honors were provided for Boyd—a ceremonial detachment
that included an honor guard, band, rifle squad, and flag-draped caisson drawn
by six gray horses. Boyd was a fighter pilot. He wore the Air Force uniform for
twenty-four years. During that time he made more contributions to fighter
tactics, aircraft design, and the theory of air combat than any man in Air Force
history. But on that soft and dreary day when Boyd’s ashes were laid to rest, the
Air Force all but ignored his passing. Only two uniformed Air Force officers
were in the congregation. One, a three-star general, represented the Air Force
chief of staff. He sat alone in the front row and was plainly uncomfortable. The
other was a major who knew Boyd’s work and simply wanted to pay his
respects.
Neither man had ever met John Boyd.
A chaplain opened the Protestant service. Then, one by one, three of Boyd’s
oldest friends walked to the front of the chapel.
Tom Christie, a tall, white-haired man, solemnly read the Twenty-third
Psalm.
Ron Catton, one of Boyd’s former students and a fellow fighter pilot,
delivered the first eulogy. He quoted Sophocles: “One must wait
until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.” As he told what it
was like to fly with Boyd back in the old days, his lips trembled and his speech
became rushed. Some of those present turned their eyes away, stared at Boyd’s
linen-draped urn, and remembered.
There was much to remember, for few men have had such a splendid day as
John Boyd.
Boyd’s friends smiled broadly, a few even chuckled, as they recalled Boyd
at his loud, arm-waving, irrepressible best. The chuckles must have puzzled the
chaplain. A military funeral with full honors is marked by dignity and solemnity.