BALLANTINE FLYING TIGERS CHENNAULT IN CHINA AVG

WEAPONS BOOK No.29 BY RON HEIFERMAN

BALLANTINE�S ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WORLD WAR II

INTRODUCTION (JOHN JOUETT, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, SHAGHAI 1937)

THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER GROUP (CURTISS P-40, BURMA, CAMCO, FLYING TIGERS, CHENNAULT, CURTISS HAWK 81A-3)

LEND-LEASE TO CHINA

NAKAJIMA Ki.27 NATE, MITSUBISHI A5M CLAUE, Ki.21 JANE BOMBER, NAKAJIMA Ki.43 HAYABUSA OSCAR, G3M NELL BOMBER,

THE BURMA ROAD

CHINA AIR TASK FORCE (STILLWELL, CURTISS C-46 COMMANDO, THE HUMP)

USAAF IN CHINA (NORTH AMERICAN B-25 MITCHELL, CONSOLIDATED B-24 LIBERATOR, THE 14^TH AIR FORCE USAAF 1943

YOU WILL FIND GREAT DEALS ON HARD-TO-FIND AVIATION, ARMOR, NAUTICAL AND MILITARIA MAGAZINES AT MY EBAY STORE �INTERNET AIRPLANE MAGAZINES AND BOOKS�! 

THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER GROUP (CURTISS P-40, BURMA, CAMCO, FLYING TIGERS, CLAIRE CHENNAULT, CURTISS HAWK 81A-3)

LEND-LEASE TO CHINA

IMPERIAL JAPANESE ARMY AIR FORCE IJAAF (NAKAJIMA Ki.27 NATE, MITSUBISHI A5M CLAUE, Ki.21 JANE BOMBER, NAKAJIMA Ki.43 HAYABUSA OSCAR, G3M NELL BOMBER)

CURTISS TOMAHAWK HAWK H81-A-2

CAMCO

TOUNGOO

MINGALADON

CAMOUFLAGE & MARKINGS

 DAVID LEE �TEX� HILL, ROBERT LAYHER, KENNETH JERNSTEDT, ROBERT T. SMITH, CHUCK OLDER, CHARLES BOND, ERIK SHILLING, STAN REGIS, WILLIAM REED, JIM CROSS, BERT CHRISTMAN, ROBERT NEALE, KUNMING CHINA, WILLIAM �BLACK MAC� McGARRY, ROBERT �DUKE� HEDMAN, PAUL J. GREENE, TOM HAYWOOD, JAMES HOWARD, ED RECTOR, BILL BARTLING, GEORGE BURGARD, HARVEY K. GREENLAW, PAPPY BOYINGTON, BOB NEALE

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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia

The 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941�1942, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC), recruited under presidential authority and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The ground crew and headquarters staff were likewise mostly recruited from the U.S. military, along with some civilians.

The group consisted of three fighter squadrons with about 30 aircraft each. It trained in Burma before the American entry into World War II with the mission of defending China against Japanese forces. The group of volunteers were officially members of the Chinese Air Force. The members of the group had contracts with salaries ranging from $250 a month for a mechanic to $750 for a squadron commander, roughly three times what they had been making in the U.S. forces.

The Tigers' shark-faced fighters remain among the most recognizable of any individual combat aircraft and combat unit of World War II, and they demonstrated innovative tactical victories when the news in the U.S. was filled with little more than stories of defeat at the hands of the Japanese forces.

The group first saw combat on 20 December 1941, 12 days after Pearl Harbor (local time). It achieved notable success during the lowest period of the war for U.S. and Allied Forces, giving hope to Americans that they would eventually succeed against the Japanese. They are officially credited with 296 enemy aircraft destroyed. The combat records of the AVG still exist and researchers have found them very credible . The AVG pilots were paid combat bonuses for destroying nearly 300 enemy aircraft, while losing only 14 pilots on combat missions. On 4 July 1942 the AVG was disbanded. They were replaced by the 23rd Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces, which was later absorbed into the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force with General Chennault as commander. The 23rd FG went on to achieve similar combat success, while retaining the nose art on the left-over P-40s.

AVG fighter aircraft came from a Curtiss assembly line producing Tomahawk IIB models for the Royal Air Force in North Africa. The Tomahawk IIB was similar to the U.S. Army's earlier P-40B model, and there is some evidence that Curtiss actually used leftover components from that model in building the fighters intended for China. The fighters were purchased without "government-furnished equipment" such as reflector gunsights, radios and wing guns; the lack of these items caused continual difficulties for the AVG in Burma and China.

The 100 P-40 aircraft were crated and sent to Burma on third country freighters during spring 1941. At Rangoon, they were unloaded, assembled and test flown by personnel of Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO) before being delivered to the AVG training unit at Toungoo. One crate was dropped into the water and a wing assembly was ruined by salt water immersion, so CAMCO was able to deliver only 99 Tomahawks before war broke out. (Many of those were destroyed in training accidents.) The 100th fuselage was trucked to a CAMCO plant in Loiwing, China, and later made whole with parts from damaged aircraft. Shortages in equipment with spare parts almost impossible to obtain in Burma along with the slow introduction of replacement fighter aircraft were continual impediments although the AVG did receive 50 replacement P-40E fighters from USAAF stocks toward the end of its combat tour.

The port of Rangoon in Burma and the Burma Road leading from there to China were of crucial importance. Eastern China was under Japanese occupation, so all military supplies for China arrived via the Burma route. By November 1941, when the pilots were trained and most of the P-40s had arrived in Asia, the Flying Tigers were divided into three squadrons: 1st Squadron ("Adam & Eves"); 2nd Squadron ("Panda Bears") and 3rd Squadron ("Hell�s Angels").[4] They were assigned to opposite ends of the Burma Road to protect this vital line of communications. Two squadrons were based at Kunming in China, and a third at Mingaladon Airport near Rangoon. When the United States officially entered the war, the AVG had 82 pilots and 79 aircraft, although not all were combat-ready.

The AVG's first combat mission was on 20 December 1941, when aircraft of the 1st and 2nd squadrons intercepted 10 unescorted Kawasaki Ki-48 "Lily" bombers of the 21st Hik�tai attacking Kunming. The bombers jettisoned their loads before reaching Kunming. Three of the Japanese bombers were shot down near Kunming and a fourth was damaged so severely that it crashed before returning to its airfield at Hanoi. Furthermore, the Japanese discontinued their raids on Kunming while the AVG was based there. One P-40 crash-landed; it was salvaged for parts.

The AVG lacked many resources. Despite its location in areas with malaria and cholera, it only had "four doctors, three nurses and a bottle of iodine." Pilots found the food disgusting, and the slow mail from home and lack of women hurt morale. A squadron had 45 maintenance personnel compared to the normal more than 100, and only one base could perform major repairs. Nonetheless, the AVG was officially credited with 297 enemy aircraft destroyed, including 229 in the air. But the loss record of the Japanese side, the 115 aircraft destroyed on the ground or be shot down, killed about 300 of the crew. Fourteen AVG pilots were killed in action, captured, or disappeared on combat missions. Two died of wounds sustained in bombing raids, and six were killed in accidents during the Flying Tigers' existence as a combat force.

The AVG's kill ratio was superior to that of contemporary Allied air groups in Malaya, the Philippines, and elsewhere in the Pacific theater. The AVG's success is all the more remarkable since they were outnumbered by Japanese fighters in almost all their engagements. The AVG's P-40s were superior to the JAAF's Ki-27s, but the group's kill ratio against modern Ki-43s was still in its favor. In Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941�1942, Daniel Ford attributes the AVG's success to morale and group esprit de corps. He notes that its pilots were "triple volunteers" who had volunteered for service with the U.S. military, the AVG, and brutal fighting in Burma. The result was a corps of experienced and skilled volunteer pilots who wanted to fight.