026 - Claire Chennault's Boys

In early December 1941, all things looked bleak for the Americans in the war against Japan. Most of its Battleships still sat in the mud at Pearl and American bases throughout the Pacific had been devastated by Japanese bombing attacks. Also, the Americans were fighting the war on two separate fronts.

On December 20^th, as a squadron of Japanese Ki-24 “Sallie” bombers flew over the Kunming Chinese Air Base in southern China, speedy green fighter planes emerged from the clouds and let loose with their six .50 caliber machine guns. Within moments, two of the bombers fell from the sky.

The planes zipped by the bombers. On the plane’s nose, a toothy grin of a shark snarled and on the wings, there was the blue sun of the Chinese Air Force. However, these weren’t Chinese pilots in the cockpit. They were Americans, The Japanese pilots could only wonder who those pilots were as they dropped their bombs early and turned back towards their home base. Before the fight was over, four Sallies were destroyed while none of the fighter planes were harmed.

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Luckily for Chiang Kai-Shek, there was an aviator from America named Claire Chennault. Chennault had captained the U.S. Air Corps’ 1^st Pursuit Group throughout most of the 1930s. Chennault was a tough, no-nonsense commander who seldom took no for an answer. This grit and determination proved both good and bad. In 1937, he was forced to resign from the Army. Soon afterwards, he took a consulting job with the Chinese Air Force.

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At this time, a Chinese Air Force Unit named The American Volunteer Group (or AVG) formed to assist the Chinese in their war against Japan. With a healthy increase from $100 to $600 per month, many American pilots resigned their positions from the U.S. Air Corps and joined the AVG.

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Chennault rigorously trained these pilots – nicknamed “the Flying Tigers” for the emblems painted upon the nose of their P-40 “Warhawk” planes and their fearsome heroics in the sky over China.