Brigadier General Claire Lee Chennault
(1893 — 1958)

During the 1930s, the United States took a position of neutrality in regard to foreign aggression. When a civil war erupted in Spain in 1936, many Americans formed volunteer corps which traveled to Europe to fight on the side of the Spanish Loyalists opposing the Fascist Nationalists under Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Meanwhile, armed conflict had erupted between China and Japan a year earlier in 1935. As this war progressed in Asia, volunteers once again became a focal point in the fight against armed aggression. The American Volunteer Group—popularly known as "the Flying Tigers"—assisted China in the attempt to repel the Japanese invaders. Long before Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, Americans fought the Japanese in Southeast Asia.

BGen. Claire Lee Chennault,

founder of the American

Volunteer Group (AVG), more

popularly known as "the Flying

Tigers."  Photo courtesy of the

National Archives.

The story begins with General Claire Lee Chennault. Born on September 06, 1893, in Commerce, Texas, Chennault grew up on a small cotton farm near the town of Waterproof in Franklin Parish, Louisiana. An alumnist of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, he volunteered for the Army when the United States declared war on Germany in 1917. He applied for flight training school but was rejected. Instead, he was accepted for officer training and commissioned a 1^st Lieutenant in the infantry reserve on October 27, 1917. Transferring to the Signal Corps, Chennault worked in an observation balloon section. His repeated applications for flight training were ignored until October of 1918. He was accepted into flight training school and graduated on April 09, 1919. However, by this time, World War I had ended.

Chennault served in the Army Air Corps throughout the next eighteen years. During this time, he became the U.S. Army Air Corps' Chief of Pursuit Training in the 1930s.  He placed strong value on fighter aircraft, arguing that fighters could destroy attacking bomber aircraft.  He had no qualms about disagreeing with official doctrine or his superiors, many of whom believed that bombers would not be bothered by such tactics.

On February 25, 1937, the Air Corps Retirement Board recommended that he leave the service. Now age 43, Chennault had been offered a job training fighter pilots in China earlier in December of '36. As such, he retired on April 30, 1937, and sailed for China eight days later. The air war between China and Japan became more of an even match under his tutelage to the Chinese. Japanese bombers no longer assaulted targets beyond the range of their fighter escorts once Chennault's Chinese fighter pilots took to the air. But by the end of 1938, most of China's air force had been destroyed.

The 1^st Pursuit Squadron:

"Adams & Eves"

Artwork copyright

The Flying Tigers-AVG.

The 2^nd Pursuit Squadron:

"Panda Bears"

Artwork copyright

The Flying Tigers-AVG.

The 3^rd Pursuit Squadron:

"Hell's Angels"

In August of 1941, the first recruits of the American Volunteer Corps, a group of trained and commissioned pilots recruited from the U.S. Armed Forces, arrived in Rangoon, Burma. These men were not serving in an official capacity for the United States. Rather, they had left the service and were—so far as international law was concerned—simply mercenaries and soldiers of fortune. This allowed the United States to maintain its state of neutrality. The AVG was equipped with P-40B Warhawk fighters. Chennault divided the group into three squadrons: 1^st Pursuit Squadron (nicknamed the "Adams & Eves"), 2^nd Pursuit Squadron (the "Panda Bears"), and 3^rd Pursuit Squadron (the "Hell's Angels").

The story of the origin of the AVG's nickname is somewhat varied. The Chinese Republic's national animal was the tiger. There was also the story that the shark's teeth painted on the nose of the planes represented the tiger shark, a creature deemed unlucky by Japanese fishermen. Some sources attributed the name as an homage to Chennault's old alma mater, LSU's "Fighting Tigers." The Chinese newspapers reportedly called the AVG the "Fei Hui," or "Flying Tigers," and the world press adopted it as a more colorful moniker than "American Volunteer Group." Whatever the case,

A variation of the badge

designed by Walt Disney

studios for the Flying Tigers.

Chennault recognized the shortages of his unit in both pilots and aircraft. Pilots were only to engage the enemy on the most favorable terms. Dogfights were strictly forbidden. The P-40 could not out-turn a Japanese fighter. Instead, the tactic used was to gain altitude over the enemy and then dive, making a firing pass as they passed through the enemy formation and then continuing onward. Lighter Japanese planes could never accelerate fast enough to catch a Warhawk. Chennault's tactics of high speed hit-and-run paid off during a time when the AVG consistently faced and outfought a numerically superior enemy force.

A Chinese soldier guards a line of American P-40 fighter

planes, painted with the shark-face emblem of the "Flying

Tigers," at a flying field somewhere in China, cira 1942.

Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

In less than one year, the Flying Tigers claimed 299 kills of Japanese aircraft; impressive considering this was accomplished by some 60 pilots and nearly 200 ground crew. However, with Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 07, 1941, the context of the war changed. The United States no longer needed to maintain neutrality. At midnight on July 04, 1942, the Flying Tigers were officially disbanded. Chennault returned to the Army Air Corps as a Brigadier General. Five pilots and 25 ground crew followed him back into the Air Corps into what became the 14^th Air Force. The remaining members of the Tigers returned to their original branches of service, including Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, USMC, founder of another famous fighter squadron: the "Black Sheep" Squadron. 

The 14^th Air Force was the direct successor of the AVG and Chennault remained in China throughout World War II until disagreements with his contemporaries and superiors about strategy in Asia eventually forced him to give up his command and return home to the United States.  The Chinese people, however, regarded him as a hero due to his long defense of their country.  Years later, in 1976, the people of Taiwan would commission a bronze statue of the General and donate it to his home state of Louisiana in thanks for his efforts on behalf of the Chinese people.

Chennault did not stay in the United States for long, returning to China in 1946 as a civilian and founding the Civil Air Transport Company, an airline that transported relief supplies to the Nationalist Chinese then fighting against the Communist forces under Mao Tse-tung.  The airline operated under the old Flying Tigers insignia.  By 1956, declining health forced him to return to the United States for medical treatment.  He visited China again briefly but renewed health problems brought him back home to the U.S. and New Orleans.  Chennault was asked to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee not long afterward.  As was the case with his military career, he did not moderate his opinions when speaking before the committee, nor was he intimidated by "the Red Scare" and the near-hysteria and paranoia that accompanied it.

On July 27, 1958, Chennault passed away with the honorary grade of Lieutenant General and was buried in Arlington National Cemetary.  Shortly thereafter, on November 14, 1958, Lake Charles Air Force Base in Louisiana was renamed Chennault Air Force Base in his honor.

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