author
Frank Walton
A Marine reservist, competitive athlete, and former Los Angeles police deputy chief, he wrote with the kind of firsthand authority that turns military history into lived experience. His best-known book revisits the legendary Black Sheep Squadron by focusing on the men behind the myth.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in 1909, Frank E. Walton led an unusually wide-ranging life before and alongside his work as an author. Sources identify him as a national swimming champion, a member of the U.S. Olympic water polo team, and a longtime officer in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, where he eventually retired as a colonel.
Walton also served with the Los Angeles Police Department and was described in biographical sources as a deputy chief. That blend of public service, athletics, and military experience shaped the direct, grounded tone of his writing.
He is best known for Once They Were Eagles: The Men of the Black Sheep Squadron, a history of Marine Fighter Squadron 214 that drew on interviews with surviving members of the original unit. Rather than simply retelling wartime legend, the book pays close attention to the squadron's real personalities and lives, which helps explain why it has remained of interest to readers of World War II and aviation history.