TONYA

Colonel Gregory Boyington, USMC, Ret.

VG--, a repaired chip on front cover (see photo), otherwise a tight, clean copy. SCARCE Cardinal Edition "pocket book" (September 1961). Original 50 cents price on cover.

(from back cover): "She wasn't handing out doughnuts and coffee . . . . She called herself Tonya and claimed to be the daughter of a Russian mining engineer. She was brought up in Mexico, she said, where her family had gone after the Revolution. By the time she had finished high school she could speak three languages, though she often admitted she had learned to say "no" in none of them. --- What was she doing there? Married to an American flyer, she seemed to spend most of time shacked up with everyone from the Colonel down. And to each she gave a gay scarf, to protect him on the chill mornings he took off for battle. Did any of them realize that this was an almost certain sign they'd never put foot to ground again? .... And even if they had known, would it have mattered?"

The character "Tonya" was based on the real-life Olga Greenlaw, wife of Chennault's executive officer, with whom Boyington had a number of "liasons". How much of Boyington's tale is fiction, how much fact and how much simply sour grapes, has provided a goodly amount of grist for the historians' mills. Suffice it to say that Boyington's novel is colorful & entertaining.

$25.00