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(More customer reviews)The Navy's Blue Angels are ambassadors of American ingenuity, prowess and accomplishment in the air. They are the premiere flight demonstration team in the world and proud symbol of not only Naval Aviation, but the entire US Navy. Their aerial acrobatics thrill million of spectators every year. Their show is always a major highlight of Commissioning Week at Annapolis. Nobody knows reliably how many people were influenced to join the Navy by the Blue Angels, but it is a considerable number.
How did they start? How have they endured for 58 years since their founding in 1946? What basic tenets underpin their success?
This, and much more, is the subject of a new book, "First Blue: The Story of World War II Ace Butch Voris and the Creation of the Blue Angels" by Bob Wilcox. This Book should appeal to anyone who has felt the thrill of aviation in their veins while watching a Blue Angels air show. It should also appeal to a broader audience. With a great story to tell, Wilcox has crafted a stirring naval action narrative that often reads like an adventure novel-covering Voris' entire life. The story ranges from heroic, tragic, humorous to absurd, but is always spellbinding.
Today Butch Voris is one of approximately 70 inductees in the Naval Aviation Hall of Honor in Pensacola, Fl. When he was selected to start the Navy Flight Demonstration Team, he was only a 26 year old, Pacific veteran and ace, a fighter pilot passing along the hard lessons learned in WWII by teaching tactics at NAS Jacksonville. With the war over, the Navy, worried about recruitment, decided they needed something special to attract positive attention for recruiting purposes.
The years before the war had seen military flight demonstration teams come and go. There was trepidation about starting another because the nation was reaping a peace dividend and Congress might see an air show enterprise as superfluous. The Navy decided to go ahead anyway. Voris was told to take his startup practices out over the Everglades so that if there were any crashes, only the alligators would know. Resources were initially limited to those on hand in the training command.
What magic has carried the Blue Angels from these humble beginnings to world renown? How did a newly minted LCDR, a product of the NavCad Program, with only two years of college education, come to be selected as the first leader of the Blues.? "First Blue" succinctly covers the events that shaped Voris in the crucible of the Pacific War and prepared him, after little more than five years Navy service, to create the Blue Angels and the Blue Angel culture of success.
After seeing a naval aviation recruiting poster, he started his career in early 1941. By fall 1942, he was on the Enterprise in some of the darkest days of the Pacific War. He participated in several of the Naval Actions in the Battle for Guadalcanal. Voris also flew to Guadacanal, became part of the vaunted "Cactus Air Force," shot down his first Japanese Zero, was in turn shot down, nearly dying in the process.
But he survived and came back for a second cruise with Hornet and the fast carriers in 1944 as they hit Tarawa, Guam, Iwo Jima, Chi Chi Jima and other islands through the Central and North Pacific. He was involved in several key battles like the Battle of the Philipine Sea including key subplots the Marianas "Turkey Shoot" and the "Mission into Darkness." He is credited with eight air to air victories over Zeros during two tours along with some amazing flying feats like participating in the Navy's first night fighter squardron.
Through this intense combat, he got to work for and with some of the finest leaders the US Navy has ever produced. O'Hare, Flately, Dean, Clark, and Thatch to name a few. This on the job training, coupled with a solid family upbringing, provided a lifetime of leadership training. This proved to be invaluable, along with Voris' passion for perfection and amazing flying skills, in forming the Blues.
Applying these basic tenets of leadership and organizational development almost by instinct, Voris created an organization that is an extension of the Navy's finest WWII aviation leaders, with the excellence and momentum to sustain, adapt and improve over time. Teamwork; competitive spirit; demanding and accepting only the best from personnel and equipment; striving for perfection with true dedication and a real sense of urgency ; learning from every show, practice and team member; never being satisfied: and perhaps most important, leading by example from the front, but with a sense of confident, humbleness. The Blue Angels represent the best the Navy has to offer. Voris planned it that way. "First Blue" tells this definitive Blue Angel story well.
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