Fighting Falcons

Fighting Falcons tells the story of Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221), tracing its combat role and evolution through World War II's shifting demands. Drawing on deep research, Peter F. Owen reveals how squadron-level experience, command decisions, and logistical realities shaped Marine aviation in the Pacific. 
This book traces the squadron’s evolution through the war, highlighting the challenges its pilots faced and the aircraft they flew: the F2A Buffalo, the F4F Wildcat, and the F4U Corsair. These transitions reflect broader changes in U.S. Marine Corps aviation as it adapted to the demands of a sprawling, high-intensity conflict. 
Author Peter F. Owen examines the operational realities behind the squadron’s missions, analyzing the Marine Corps’ performance in the Pacific air war. He explores how missteps at higher levels of command shaped outcomes in the air, and he sheds light on the complex logistics and maintenance challenges crucial to success.  
Based on extensive research, Fighting Falcons provides new insight into how Marine aviation functioned at the squadron level—and how that experience shaped its development in wartime. For readers interested in aviation history, military operations, or the Pacific theater, this book delivers a valuable perspective on one of the Marine Corps’ notable fighter squadrons and the larger story of how the United States fought—and learned—its way to victory in the Pacific.

Peter Owen served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps for over twenty years. His first book, To the Limit of Endurance: A Battalion of Marines in the First World War, received the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s prestigious General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award. Dr. Owen majored in history at the U.S. Naval Academy and earned his PhD in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He and his wife live in Fairport, NY.