Flying Tiger: Chennault of China

Flying Tiger: Chennault of China

Flying Tiger, first published in 1959, is the dramatic saga of Air Corps aviator Claire Chennault and his fighting team known as the "Flying Tigers." Chennault, arrived in China in June 1937 and became Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek's chief air adviser, training Chinese Air Force pilots as well as sometimes flying scouting missions. His duties also included organizing the "International Squadron" of mercenary pilots. The American Volunteer Group (AVG) was one of the few bright spots for America at the beginning of World War 2 with volunteer airmen and aircrew off in the exotic Orient fighting the Japanese invaders. Claire Chennault, an Air Corps officer whose radical ideas about pursuit fighters got him thrown out of the army, took a band of Navy and Army pilots with little combat experience, flying obsolete aircraft, outfitted with whatever supplies they could get shipped through Rangoon or over the Burma Hump, and turned them into a fighting force that could use the P-40 Warhawk effectively against more-maneuverable Japanese aircraft. For 7 months the AVG fought the Japanese, retreating only when invading ground troops threatened their airfields. The book's author, Colonel Robert Lee Scott, Jr., flew nearly 400 missions with the Flying Tigers, and is noted for his autobiography God is My Co-Pilot, first published in 1943.

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