Secrets of World War II They Flew for China (1998– ) Online

It's an interesting episode. By the end of 1941 the Japanese had taken Manchuria, most of the European colonies in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and a large chunk of China itself. Japan had a modern air force and army as well as a formidable navy. Nothing seemed to stop them.

Claire Chennault resigned from the US Army Air Corps and took the appointment as air adviser to Chiang Kai Sheck, who was on "our side." When he arrived, the Chinese airfields were being routinely damaged or destroyed by Japanese bombers with virtually no resistance from the Chinese air force and their obsolete fighters.

Chennault found that they had no combat tactics at all. If a bombing raid was on its way, the Chinese took off helter skelter and attacked whoever they saw, at will. Chennault introduced them to the notion of fighting in pairs -- one leader and one covering wing man. And if a flier found himself alone, he was to join the nearest pair and serve as upper cover.

For a while, the Chinese were aided by Russian pilots in Russian fighters but they were soon withdrawn. With the appearance of the nimble Mitsubishi Zero, the Chinese were left with a marked disadvantage in pilots and airplanes.

Chennault was allowed by President Roosevelt to recruit pilots from the US Air Corps. They would be paid by the Chinese through an intermediate organization, about five hundred dollars a month and a bonus for every Japanese airplane shot down. They were known as the American Volunteer Group. If they'd been the enemy, we'd have called them "mercenaries." I want to avoid too much detail but the result of AVG recruitment was a few dozen pilots flying the Curtis P-40B. The airplane had self-sealing fuel tanks, was well-enough armed, and had a high diving speed but it could be easily outmaneuvered by the lighter Japanese fighters.

Chennault studied Japanese flight manuals and watched the Zeros in action and used this information to maximize the strengths of the P-40. Instead of dog fighting, the tactic was to gain altitude, dive on a flight of enemy airplanes, and then keep on going down -- "hit and run." The AVG copied a British habit of painting a shark's head on the nose of their P-40s and they became known as the Flying Tigers. Walt Disney designed the logo for their leather flight jackets. Time Magazine's article on their combat debut: "Blood For The Tigers." They were promoted by the press as heroes at a time when the US and the rest of the Allies desperately needed heroes. As a child, I remember seeing kids enthusiastically carving and painting shark-headed P-40s out of balsa wood, and this was after the dissolution of the AVG.

Despite their overall success rate, the Flying Tigers couldn't save Southeast Asia from being overrun by the Japanese forces. They were heavily outnumbered and their numbers were decreasing. The Japanese pilots, being neither stupid nor unskilled, developed their own tactics for fighting the P-40s.

In July, 1942, the AVG were formally inducted into the US 14th Air Force. That's how the narrator phrases it. Actually they were given the choice of joining or else going home and being drafted as privates. The US Air Force had little room for a hero like Chennault who hadn't even BEEN in the Air Force for years.

I don't know if many of today's youth have much of an idea of who or what the "Flying Tigers" were. It probably sounds like a football team. But in 1940 and 1941 they were celebrities. Their obsolescent P-40Es were decorated with a distinctive shark's face on the engine cowling and air intake. They and their leader, Clair Chennault, gave a boost to Western morale after the attack on Pearl Harbor, at a time when the news looked pretty dismal.

The documentary is reasonably thorough, though references to internal conflicts and organization weaknesses are understated. They were a group of about 80 American pilots recruited from US Armed Forces in 1940 and 1941 as mercenaries for the Chinese who were, at the time, battling a Japanese invasion. Chennault, whose face resembled a mask of leather, cared little about military protocol and the pilots and ground crew were pretty loose limbed in their behavior.

They flew with great distinction against the Japanese but were gradually worn down and forced to retreat until they were disbanded. Their absorption into the US Air Force was simple. When the US entered the war, the pilots were given a choice. Transfer as ordinary pilots to the Air Force, subject to the usual military discipline, or be shipped home and drafted as privates. Chennault himself was given a medal and disappeared from public view.

This isn't the usual, familiar panegyric. Before the Flying Tigers (officially the AVG or "American Volunteer Group") there were RAF pilots flying against the Japanese, and Russian pilots as well, but their numbers were small and their equipment out of date.