Flying Tigers Tribute

A Life Aloft

Well-Known Member
160711FlyingTigers_print.jpg


A squadron of World War II P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft will descend on Dekalb-Peachtree Airport (KPDK) Sept. 24-25 to celebrate the third annual Atlanta Warbird Weekend. The event at the Chamblee airport is a community effort led by the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Dixie Wing, the Georgia Chapter of the world’s largest World War II flying collection.

This year’s program will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), nicknamed the Flying Tigers. AWW will host the largest gathering of P-40 Warhawks since the retirement of the aircraft type in 1954, with at least nine of the historic planes at the airport.

The Curtiss P-40 was highly associated with the Flying Tigers and was the third- most- produced fighter plane of WWII. Very few are still flying and the AWW event will be a rare opportunity to see these aircraft together.

“We can add to this collection of vintage fighters if we can raise additional funds before the event,” said Mo Aguiari, CAF Dixie Wing marketing officer and AWW co-chairman. “There are several other P-40 owners willing to bring their aircraft to this gathering if we can raise the money to cover their expenses. This will be even more spectacular if we can add to the group already scheduled to appear. The CAF is actively seeking sponsors or public donations to help bring more P-40s to AWW.”

The Flying Tigers were recruited under presidential authority and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The shark-faced nose art of the Flying Tigers remains among the most recognizable images of any individual combat aircraft or combat unit of World War II. The AVG Flying Tigers Association will celebrate its reunion in conjunction with the AWW.

Presentations at AWW, and leading up to the event, will be organized to educate and connect the public with the historical significance of the American Volunteer Group.

“We have chosen to honor the Flying Tigers and to support the AVG Flying Tigers Association mission to preserve, respect, inform, educate and keep alive the accurate history of the AVG,” said Aguiari. “In just seven months of intense aerial combat, the AVG earned a lasting niche in aviation history.”

“Atlanta Warbird Weekend in 2015 exceeded attendance and participation projections, “said Jay Bess, CAF Dixie Wing leader and AWW co-chairman. “Community support has been amazing and it really brought history alive in honor of our veterans. Aviation and veterans’ groups, museums, local municipalities and individuals are volunteering to help us share the story of World War II aviation history.”

Atlanta Warbird Weekend will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day Sept. 24-25 at the Dekalb-Peachtree Airport. For a complete schedule of activities, flight prices and reservations, or to purchase tickets to “Dinner with the Flying Tigers”, visit www.atlantawarbirdweekend.com.





5f5a7ee86b5e7628620f6a70670087c4_tx600.JPEG


The Flying Tigers were pilots from the Marines, Navy and the Army Air Corps who volunteered to fight against the Japanese in Burma and China. In April, 1937, Claire L. Chennault, then a Captain in the United States Army Air Corps, retired from active duty and accepted an offer from Madame Chiang Kai-shek for a three month mission to China to make a confidential survey of the Chinese Air Force. At that time China and Japan were on the verge of war and the fledgling Chinese Air Force was beset by internal problems and torn between American and Italian influence.

post-4542-1309057252.jpg


"My plan proposed to throw a small but well-equipped air force into China. Japan, Like England, floated her life blood on the sea and could be defeated more easily by slashing her salty arties than by stabbing for her heart. Air bases in Free China could put all of the vital Japanese supply lines and advanced staging areas under attack.

"This strategic concept of China as a platform of air attack on Japan offered little attraction of the military planners of 1941. It was not until the Trident Conference of 1943 that I found any appreciation of my strategy or any support for the plans to implement it. This support came from two civilians, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and was offered against the strong advise of their military advisers."*

Unfortunately, the only salvage out of all Chennault's plans and efforts during 1940-41 was the First (and only) American Volunteer Group of fighter pilots and fighter planes. In discussing the genesis of the American Volunteer Group, Chennault states:

"Methods of implementing the fighter-group plan developed faster than I expected. It became evident during the winter that China had a small but powerful circle of friends in the White House and Cabinet. Dr. Lauchlin Currie was sent to China as President Roosevelt's special adviser and returned a strong backer of increased aid to China in general and my air plans in particular. Another trusted adviser of the President-Thomas Corcoran-did yeoman service in pushing the American Volunteer Group project when the pressure against it was strongest."

7b7fe20fc29c5299931ce7026b825146.jpg


"Planes were a tough problem. China had been a long-time, profitable customer for Curtiss-Wright, so my old friend, Burdette Wright, Curtiss Vice-President, came up with a proposition. They had six assembly lines turning out P-40's for the British, who had taken over a French order after the fall of France. If the British would waive their priority on 100 P-40B's then rolling off one line, Curtiss would add a seventh assembly line and make 100 later-model P-40's for the British. The British were glad to exchange the P-40B for a model more suitable for combat.

18SINO-FLYINGTIGERS01-tmagArticle.jpg


"The P-40B was not equipped with a gun sight, bomb rack or provisions for attaching auxiliary fuel tanks to the wing or belly. Much of our effort during training and combat was devoted to makeshift attempts to remedy these deficiencies. The combat record of the First American Volunteer Group in China is even more remarkable because its pilots were aiming their guns through a crude, homemade, ring-and-post gun sight instead of the more accurate optical sights used by the Air Corps and the Royal Air Force.

"Personnel proved a tougher nut to crack. The military were violently opposed to the whole idea of American volunteers in China. Lauchlin Currie and I went to see General Arnold in April of 1941. He was 100% opposed to the project.

"In the Navy, Rear Admiral Jack Towers, then Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics and later Commander of the Navy's Pacific Air Forces also viewed the A.V.G. as a threat to his expansion program. . .

22.jpg



". . . It took direct personal intervention from President Roosevelt to pry the pilots and ground crews from the Army and Navy. On April 15, 1941, an unpublished executive order went out under his signature, authorizing reserve officer and enlisted men to resign from the Army Air Corps, Naval and Marine air services for the purpose of joining the American Volunteer Group in China.

1024px-Flying_Tiger_P-40_Kunming.jpg


"Orders went out to all military air fields, signed by Secretary Knox and General Arnold, authorizing bearers of certain letters freedom of the post, including permission to talk with all personnel.

P-40K_King_Boogie_75th_FS_23rd_FG_China_1943.jpg




" . . . Their offer was a one-year contract with CAMCO (Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company) to 'manufacture, repair and operate aircraft at salaries ranging from $250 to $750 a month. Traveling expenses, 30 days leave with pay, quarters, and $30 additional for rations were specified. They would be subject to summary dismissal by written notice for insubordination, habitual use of drugs or alcohol, illness not incurred in line of duty, malingering, and revealing confidential information. Before the end of the A.V.G., I had to dismiss at least one man for every cause except revealing confidential information. A system of fines was initiated for minor offences.

Fwj1dAs.jpg


"There was not mention in the contract of a $500-bonus for every Japanese plane destroyed. Volunteers were told simply that there was a rumor that the Chinese government would pay $500 for each confirmed Jap plane. They could take the rumor for what it was worth. It turned out to be worth exactly $500 per plane. Although initially the five-hundred-dollar-bonus was paid for confirmed planes destroyed in air combat only, the bonus was soon applied to planes destroyed on the ground - if they could be confirmed."

The first contingent (of pilots) of the American Volunteer Group left San Francisco on July 10, 1941, aboard the Dutch ship Jaegersfontaine. Just before leaving, Chennault received confirmation of Presidential approval for the second American Volunteer Group of bombers with a schedule of 100 pilots and 181 gunners and radio men to arrive in China by November, 1941, and an equal number to follow in January, 1942.

P-40N_serial_42-104925_Peace_Maker_of_the_26th_FS_51st_FG_Kunming_airfield_China.jpg


Upon returning to the Orient in the summer of 1941, Chennault arranged with the British for the use of the Royal Air Force Keydaw airdrome at Toungoo, Burma. Arrangements were made by the Chinese with the British for the assembly and test flying by the A.V.G. of its P-40's. The A.V.G. P-40's were assembled at Rangoon, and all radios, oxygen equipment, and armament were installed by A.V.G. group mechanics at Toungoo.

img0008-c.jpg


Speaking of the combat training routines of the A.V.G. at Toungoo, Chennault states:

"Our Toungoo routine began at 6:00 a.m. with a lecture in a teakwood classroom near the field, where I held forth with black-board, maps, and mimeographed textbooks. All my life I have been a teacher, ranging from the one-room schools of rural Louisiana to director of one of the largest Air Corps flying schools, but I believe that the best teaching of my career was done in that teakwood shack at Toungoo, where the assortment of American volunteers turned into the word-famous Flying Tigers, whose aerial combat record has never been equaled by a group of comparable size.

5.jpg



"Every pilot who arrived before September 15 got seventy-two hours of lectures in addition to sixty hours of specialized flying. I gave the pilots a lesson in the geography of Asia that they all needed badly, told them something of the war in China, and how the Chinese air-raid warning net worked.

"I taught them all I knew about the Japanese. Day after day there were lectures from my notebooks, filled during the previous four years of combat. All of the bitter experience from Nanking to Chunking was poured out in those lectures. Captured Japanese flying and staff manuals, translated into English by the Chinese, served as textbooks. From these manuals the American pilots learned more about Japanese tactics than any single Japanese pilot ever knew."

8.jpg


The Third A.V.G. squadron moved to Rangoon on December 12, 1941, to join the R.A.F. in the defense of Rangoon. The First and Second squadrons flew from Toungoo to Kunming on the afternoon of the 18th. The first combat for the A.V.G. occurred over southern Yunnan Province on December 20, 1941. In their first combat, a combination of the First and Second Squadrons, shot down nine out of ten Japanese bombers with a loss of one A.V.G. aircraft. The second engagement brought the Third Squadron onto action over Rangoon on December 23, with the R.A.F. flying beside the Tigers. The total haul of Japs was six bombers and four fighters. The R.A.F. lost five planes and pilots and the A.V.G. lost four planes and two pilots.

Then, on Christmas Day, two waves totaling 80 Jap bombers and 48 fighters hit Rangoon. The A.V.G. knocked down 23 of them, the biggest victory of the war, with six more Jap planes believed shot down over the Gulf of Martaban. The A.V.G. suffered not the loss of a single plane.

The 28th brought another heavy enemy attack - 20 bombers and 25 fighters. The A.V.G. got 10 of them with no losses.

The next day, the 29th, the Japs threw 40 bombers and 20 fighters against the Tigers who scored 18 kills with a loss of only a single aircraft.

Now it was the day of New Year's Eve but it dawned with no let up in the Jap assault. 80 planes crowding the skies over Rangoon. The Tigers shot down 15 without the loss of a single aircraft.

Liberator_bomber_crosses_the_P-40_fighter_planes.jpg


In 11 days of fighting, the A.V.G. had officially knocked 75 enemy aircraft out of the skies with an undetermined number of probable kills such as the losses the Japs suffered over the Gulf of Martaban. The A.V.G. losses were two pilots and six aircraft.

Early in January, the Rangoon defense was reinforced by eight planes from the First Squadron and the A.V.G. began their first strafing of the war. Hitting the Jap air base in Thailand, they wiped out a dozen planes on the ground. On January 13, the remainder of the First Squadron joined the other A.V.G. forces at Rangoon and there followed a series of raids on Jap air bases. Ten days later, January 23, after a series of engagements over Kunming and Rangoon, the Japes attacked Rangoon in force again, 72 planes appearing there and the A.V.G. got 21 of them with the loss of only one American pilot. Air battles continued over Rangoon until it finally fell to enemy ground forces at the end of February. During this time, in one strafing raid in Thailand, the A.V.G. knocked out upwards of 60 enemy aircraft on the ground, the biggest ground victory of the war. But advancing Jap ground forces slowly drove the A.V.G. to bases at Magwe in Burma and eventually into the interior of China.

There, the Tigers continued to carry out their final missions, supporting the Chinese ground forces on both eastern and western fronts as well as defending Chinese cities against attacks by the Japanese Air Force.

44FS000.jpg



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Great story of a warfighting force that we likely won't see of it's kind again, save for standard mercenary forces.

It's a neat story too of how 10 of these men began the Flying Tiger Line.
 
They were the first scheduled cargo carrier in the US. They were awarded the first all cargo trans pac route in 1977. The founding pilots were Bob Prescott, Duke Hedman, Link Laughlin, Cliff Groh, Bus Loane, Bill Bartling, Tommy Haywood, Joe Rosbert, Dick Rossi, and Catfish Raine.

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This is Bob Prescott on the left, and then Boeing President E.H. "Tex" Bouillioun

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Bob found 14 Navy surplus Budd Conestoga cargo aircraft and collected $89,000 from friends who had flown with him in China. This sum was equaled by an investment group. . A month or so later, he landed his first three loads. A planeload of grapes from Bakersfield to Atlanta, flowers from California to Detroit, and furniture from New York to California. Flying Tigers was off the ground. A four-year fight for official government certification ended in 1949 with approval of the nation's first commercial all-cargo route.


The Tigers were the first to fly the 747-100 converted freighter.


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160711FlyingTigers_print.jpg


A squadron of World War II P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft will descend on Dekalb-Peachtree Airport (KPDK) Sept. 24-25 to celebrate the third annual Atlanta Warbird Weekend. The event at the Chamblee airport is a community effort led by the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Dixie Wing, the Georgia Chapter of the world’s largest World War II flying collection.

This year’s program will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), nicknamed the Flying Tigers. AWW will host the largest gathering of P-40 Warhawks since the retirement of the aircraft type in 1954, with at least nine of the historic planes at the airport.

The Curtiss P-40 was highly associated with the Flying Tigers and was the third- most- produced fighter plane of WWII. Very few are still flying and the AWW event will be a rare opportunity to see these aircraft together.

“We can add to this collection of vintage fighters if we can raise additional funds before the event,” said Mo Aguiari, CAF Dixie Wing marketing officer and AWW co-chairman. “There are several other P-40 owners willing to bring their aircraft to this gathering if we can raise the money to cover their expenses. This will be even more spectacular if we can add to the group already scheduled to appear. The CAF is actively seeking sponsors or public donations to help bring more P-40s to AWW.”

The Flying Tigers were recruited under presidential authority and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The shark-faced nose art of the Flying Tigers remains among the most recognizable images of any individual combat aircraft or combat unit of World War II. The AVG Flying Tigers Association will celebrate its reunion in conjunction with the AWW.

Presentations at AWW, and leading up to the event, will be organized to educate and connect the public with the historical significance of the American Volunteer Group.

“We have chosen to honor the Flying Tigers and to support the AVG Flying Tigers Association mission to preserve, respect, inform, educate and keep alive the accurate history of the AVG,” said Aguiari. “In just seven months of intense aerial combat, the AVG earned a lasting niche in aviation history.”

“Atlanta Warbird Weekend in 2015 exceeded attendance and participation projections, “said Jay Bess, CAF Dixie Wing leader and AWW co-chairman. “Community support has been amazing and it really brought history alive in honor of our veterans. Aviation and veterans’ groups, museums, local municipalities and individuals are volunteering to help us share the story of World War II aviation history.”

Atlanta Warbird Weekend will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day Sept. 24-25 at the Dekalb-Peachtree Airport. For a complete schedule of activities, flight prices and reservations, or to purchase tickets to “Dinner with the Flying Tigers”, visit www.atlantawarbirdweekend.com.





5f5a7ee86b5e7628620f6a70670087c4_tx600.JPEG


The Flying Tigers were pilots from the Marines, Navy and the Army Air Corps who volunteered to fight against the Japanese in Burma and China. In April, 1937, Claire L. Chennault, then a Captain in the United States Army Air Corps, retired from active duty and accepted an offer from Madame Chiang Kai-shek for a three month mission to China to make a confidential survey of the Chinese Air Force. At that time China and Japan were on the verge of war and the fledgling Chinese Air Force was beset by internal problems and torn between American and Italian influence.

post-4542-1309057252.jpg


"My plan proposed to throw a small but well-equipped air force into China. Japan, Like England, floated her life blood on the sea and could be defeated more easily by slashing her salty arties than by stabbing for her heart. Air bases in Free China could put all of the vital Japanese supply lines and advanced staging areas under attack.

"This strategic concept of China as a platform of air attack on Japan offered little attraction of the military planners of 1941. It was not until the Trident Conference of 1943 that I found any appreciation of my strategy or any support for the plans to implement it. This support came from two civilians, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and was offered against the strong advise of their military advisers."*

Unfortunately, the only salvage out of all Chennault's plans and efforts during 1940-41 was the First (and only) American Volunteer Group of fighter pilots and fighter planes. In discussing the genesis of the American Volunteer Group, Chennault states:

"Methods of implementing the fighter-group plan developed faster than I expected. It became evident during the winter that China had a small but powerful circle of friends in the White House and Cabinet. Dr. Lauchlin Currie was sent to China as President Roosevelt's special adviser and returned a strong backer of increased aid to China in general and my air plans in particular. Another trusted adviser of the President-Thomas Corcoran-did yeoman service in pushing the American Volunteer Group project when the pressure against it was strongest."

7b7fe20fc29c5299931ce7026b825146.jpg


"Planes were a tough problem. China had been a long-time, profitable customer for Curtiss-Wright, so my old friend, Burdette Wright, Curtiss Vice-President, came up with a proposition. They had six assembly lines turning out P-40's for the British, who had taken over a French order after the fall of France. If the British would waive their priority on 100 P-40B's then rolling off one line, Curtiss would add a seventh assembly line and make 100 later-model P-40's for the British. The British were glad to exchange the P-40B for a model more suitable for combat.

18SINO-FLYINGTIGERS01-tmagArticle.jpg


"The P-40B was not equipped with a gun sight, bomb rack or provisions for attaching auxiliary fuel tanks to the wing or belly. Much of our effort during training and combat was devoted to makeshift attempts to remedy these deficiencies. The combat record of the First American Volunteer Group in China is even more remarkable because its pilots were aiming their guns through a crude, homemade, ring-and-post gun sight instead of the more accurate optical sights used by the Air Corps and the Royal Air Force.

"Personnel proved a tougher nut to crack. The military were violently opposed to the whole idea of American volunteers in China. Lauchlin Currie and I went to see General Arnold in April of 1941. He was 100% opposed to the project.

"In the Navy, Rear Admiral Jack Towers, then Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics and later Commander of the Navy's Pacific Air Forces also viewed the A.V.G. as a threat to his expansion program. . .

22.jpg



". . . It took direct personal intervention from President Roosevelt to pry the pilots and ground crews from the Army and Navy. On April 15, 1941, an unpublished executive order went out under his signature, authorizing reserve officer and enlisted men to resign from the Army Air Corps, Naval and Marine air services for the purpose of joining the American Volunteer Group in China.

1024px-Flying_Tiger_P-40_Kunming.jpg


"Orders went out to all military air fields, signed by Secretary Knox and General Arnold, authorizing bearers of certain letters freedom of the post, including permission to talk with all personnel.

P-40K_King_Boogie_75th_FS_23rd_FG_China_1943.jpg




" . . . Their offer was a one-year contract with CAMCO (Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company) to 'manufacture, repair and operate aircraft at salaries ranging from $250 to $750 a month. Traveling expenses, 30 days leave with pay, quarters, and $30 additional for rations were specified. They would be subject to summary dismissal by written notice for insubordination, habitual use of drugs or alcohol, illness not incurred in line of duty, malingering, and revealing confidential information. Before the end of the A.V.G., I had to dismiss at least one man for every cause except revealing confidential information. A system of fines was initiated for minor offences.

Fwj1dAs.jpg


"There was not mention in the contract of a $500-bonus for every Japanese plane destroyed. Volunteers were told simply that there was a rumor that the Chinese government would pay $500 for each confirmed Jap plane. They could take the rumor for what it was worth. It turned out to be worth exactly $500 per plane. Although initially the five-hundred-dollar-bonus was paid for confirmed planes destroyed in air combat only, the bonus was soon applied to planes destroyed on the ground - if they could be confirmed."

The first contingent (of pilots) of the American Volunteer Group left San Francisco on July 10, 1941, aboard the Dutch ship Jaegersfontaine. Just before leaving, Chennault received confirmation of Presidential approval for the second American Volunteer Group of bombers with a schedule of 100 pilots and 181 gunners and radio men to arrive in China by November, 1941, and an equal number to follow in January, 1942.

P-40N_serial_42-104925_Peace_Maker_of_the_26th_FS_51st_FG_Kunming_airfield_China.jpg


Upon returning to the Orient in the summer of 1941, Chennault arranged with the British for the use of the Royal Air Force Keydaw airdrome at Toungoo, Burma. Arrangements were made by the Chinese with the British for the assembly and test flying by the A.V.G. of its P-40's. The A.V.G. P-40's were assembled at Rangoon, and all radios, oxygen equipment, and armament were installed by A.V.G. group mechanics at Toungoo.

img0008-c.jpg


Speaking of the combat training routines of the A.V.G. at Toungoo, Chennault states:

"Our Toungoo routine began at 6:00 a.m. with a lecture in a teakwood classroom near the field, where I held forth with black-board, maps, and mimeographed textbooks. All my life I have been a teacher, ranging from the one-room schools of rural Louisiana to director of one of the largest Air Corps flying schools, but I believe that the best teaching of my career was done in that teakwood shack at Toungoo, where the assortment of American volunteers turned into the word-famous Flying Tigers, whose aerial combat record has never been equaled by a group of comparable size.

5.jpg



"Every pilot who arrived before September 15 got seventy-two hours of lectures in addition to sixty hours of specialized flying. I gave the pilots a lesson in the geography of Asia that they all needed badly, told them something of the war in China, and how the Chinese air-raid warning net worked.

"I taught them all I knew about the Japanese. Day after day there were lectures from my notebooks, filled during the previous four years of combat. All of the bitter experience from Nanking to Chunking was poured out in those lectures. Captured Japanese flying and staff manuals, translated into English by the Chinese, served as textbooks. From these manuals the American pilots learned more about Japanese tactics than any single Japanese pilot ever knew."

8.jpg


The Third A.V.G. squadron moved to Rangoon on December 12, 1941, to join the R.A.F. in the defense of Rangoon. The First and Second squadrons flew from Toungoo to Kunming on the afternoon of the 18th. The first combat for the A.V.G. occurred over southern Yunnan Province on December 20, 1941. In their first combat, a combination of the First and Second Squadrons, shot down nine out of ten Japanese bombers with a loss of one A.V.G. aircraft. The second engagement brought the Third Squadron onto action over Rangoon on December 23, with the R.A.F. flying beside the Tigers. The total haul of Japs was six bombers and four fighters. The R.A.F. lost five planes and pilots and the A.V.G. lost four planes and two pilots.

Then, on Christmas Day, two waves totaling 80 Jap bombers and 48 fighters hit Rangoon. The A.V.G. knocked down 23 of them, the biggest victory of the war, with six more Jap planes believed shot down over the Gulf of Martaban. The A.V.G. suffered not the loss of a single plane.

The 28th brought another heavy enemy attack - 20 bombers and 25 fighters. The A.V.G. got 10 of them with no losses.

The next day, the 29th, the Japs threw 40 bombers and 20 fighters against the Tigers who scored 18 kills with a loss of only a single aircraft.

Now it was the day of New Year's Eve but it dawned with no let up in the Jap assault. 80 planes crowding the skies over Rangoon. The Tigers shot down 15 without the loss of a single aircraft.

Liberator_bomber_crosses_the_P-40_fighter_planes.jpg


In 11 days of fighting, the A.V.G. had officially knocked 75 enemy aircraft out of the skies with an undetermined number of probable kills such as the losses the Japs suffered over the Gulf of Martaban. The A.V.G. losses were two pilots and six aircraft.

Early in January, the Rangoon defense was reinforced by eight planes from the First Squadron and the A.V.G. began their first strafing of the war. Hitting the Jap air base in Thailand, they wiped out a dozen planes on the ground. On January 13, the remainder of the First Squadron joined the other A.V.G. forces at Rangoon and there followed a series of raids on Jap air bases. Ten days later, January 23, after a series of engagements over Kunming and Rangoon, the Japes attacked Rangoon in force again, 72 planes appearing there and the A.V.G. got 21 of them with the loss of only one American pilot. Air battles continued over Rangoon until it finally fell to enemy ground forces at the end of February. During this time, in one strafing raid in Thailand, the A.V.G. knocked out upwards of 60 enemy aircraft on the ground, the biggest ground victory of the war. But advancing Jap ground forces slowly drove the A.V.G. to bases at Magwe in Burma and eventually into the interior of China.

There, the Tigers continued to carry out their final missions, supporting the Chinese ground forces on both eastern and western fronts as well as defending Chinese cities against attacks by the Japanese Air Force.

44FS000.jpg



9a3275cc7429c56f8c791512c177f85e.jpg

Great write up!

Too bad most of the pictures are post AVG era. Most are from after mid-1942 after the AVG was disbanded and the operation became a part of the USAAF.
 
EDIT - Great post, @A Life Aloft

John Toland's "The Flying Tigers" was the first non-fiction book I could remember reading as a kid that connected the experience of the pilot to the airplane. For me, at 10 years old, the airplanes were the thing, but I didn't really know much about the men who flew them. I read Yeager's autobiography a few years later, even though I was too young to understand parts of it.

It's been forever since I read the book, but I recall a passage about Duke Hedman making an emotional connection about the kills he was making, stopped counting one day and never claimed another. It might have been another guy, but I *think* it was Duke Hedman.
 
The 2016 Chino Airshow opened with 5 P-40's in formation making a low pass.

A local FBO bought the name Flying Tigers and has build his business around that theme.

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