The American Volunteer Group, or 'Flying Tigers', have remained the most famous outfit to see action in World War II. Manned by volunteers flying American aircraft acquired from the British, the AVG fought bravely in the face of overwhelming odds in China and Burma prior to the US entry into World War II. Pilots such as 'Pappy' Boyington, R T Smith and John Petach became household names due to their exploits against the Japanese Army Air Force. The AVG legend was created flying the Curtis P-40 Tomahawk and Kittyhawk. This volume dispels the myths surrounding the colours and markings worn by these famous fighters.
Bill Reed had it all – brains, looks, athleticism, courage and a talent for leadership. After a challenging childhood in Depression-era Iowa, Reed joined the US Army Air Corps, but the outbreak of World War II saw him give up his commission. Instead, he travelled to China to fly for the American Volunteer Group – the legendary Flying Tigers. After a brief return to America, he resumed the fight as a senior pilot and later squadron commander in the Chinese-American Composite Wing. Soon afterwards, Reed tragically lost his life in a desperate parachute jump late in the war, by which point he was a fighter ace with nine confirmed aerial victories. His obituary was front-page news throughout the state of Iowa. This book is a biography of his extraordinary life, focusing on his time spent flying with some of the famous aerial groups of World War II. It draws heavily on Reed's own words, along with the author's deep knowledge of the China air war and years of research into Reed's life, to tell his compelling story.
The American Volunteer Group, or 'Flying Tigers', have remained the most famous outfit to see action in World War II. Manned by volunteers flying American aircraft acquired from the British, the AVG fought bravely in the face of overwhelming odds in China and Burma prior to the US entry into World War II. Pilots such as 'Pappy' Boyington, R T Smith and John Petach became household names due to their exploits against the Japanese Army Air Force. The AVG legend was created flying the Curtis P-40 Tomahawk and Kittyhawk. This volume dispels the myths surrounding the colours and markings worn by these famous fighters.
During World War II, in the skies over Burma and China, a handful of American pilots met and bloodied the "Imperial Wild Eagles" of Japan and won immortality as the Flying Tigers. One of America's most famous combat forces, the Tigers were recruited to defend beleaguered China for $600 a month and a bounty of $500 for each Japanese plane they shot down--fantastic money in an era when a Manhattan hotel room cost three dollars a night.This May 2023 revision has never-before-published information about Chennault's early years. "Admirable," wrote Chennault biographer Martha Byrd of Ford's original text. "A readable book based on sound sources. Expect some surprises." Flying Tigers won the Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence in the year of its first publication.
The thrilling story behind the American pilots who were secretly recruited to defend the nation’s desperate Chinese allies before Pearl Harbor and ended up on the front lines of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China. At a time when the Allies were being defeated across the globe, the Flying Tigers’ exploits gave hope to Americans and Chinese alike. Kleiner takes readers into the cockpits of their iconic shark-nosed P-40 planes—one of the most familiar images of the war—as the Tigers perform nail-biting missions against the Japanese. He profiles the outsize personalities involved in the operation, including Chennault, whose aggressive tactics went against the prevailing wisdom of military strategy; Greg “Pappy” Boyington, the man who would become the nation’s most beloved pilot until he was shot down and became a POW; Emma Foster, one of the nurses in the unit who had a passionate romance with a pilot named John Petach; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek herself, who first brought Chennault to China and who would come to visit these young Americans. A dramatic story of a covert operation whose very existence would have scandalized an isolationist United States, The Flying Tigers is the unforgettable account of a group of Americans whose heroism changed the world, and who cemented an alliance between the United States and China as both nations fought against seemingly insurmountable odds.
The ace pilots of the Republic of China Air Force have long been shrouded in mystery and obscurity, as their retreat to Taiwan in 1949 and blanket martial law made records of the RoCAF all but impossible to access. Now, for the first time, the colourful story of these aces can finally be told. Using the latest research based on released archival information and full-colour illustrations, this book charts the history of the top scoring pilots of the RoCAF from the beginning of the gruelling, eight-year Sino-Japanese War to the conclusion of the Civil War against the Chinese Communists. Beginning as a ragged and very disparate group of planes and pilots drawn from various provincial air forces, the RoCAF gradually became standardised and was brought under American tutelage. Altogether it produced 17 aces who scored kills whilst flying a startling variety of aircraft, from biplanes to F-86 Sabres.
" Draws aside the curtain of mythology and shows the AVG members--pilots, mechanics, nurses, and Chennault himself--as recognizable humans with a full spectrum of virtues and faults. Yet, the glory remains undiminished . . . A Flying Tiger's Diary is highly readable and is wholeheartedly recommended."--Military Review The Flying Tigers, under the leadership of Claire Chennault, fought legendary air battles in the skies over Burma and China. This journal of ace pilot Charles Bond, now in its fifth printing, vividly preserves his experiences in aerial combat against the Japanese, all recorded within twenty-four hours of the action. It also documents the training and living conditions of the men whom Gen. Bruce K. Holloway has called "the most colorful group of warriors in modern times." A limited, specially bound edition of A Flying Tiger's Diary, signed and with a laid-in print by Terry Pyles, is available while supply lasts."
Mere months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a volunteer group of American airmen to the Far East, convinced that supporting Chinese resistance against the continuing Japanese invasion would be crucial to an eventual Allied victory in World War II. Within two weeks of that fateful Sunday in December 1941, the American Volunteer Group—soon to become known as the legendary "Flying Tigers"—went into action. For three and a half years, the volunteers and the Army Air Force airmen who followed them fought in dangerous aerial duels over East Asia. Audaciously led by master tactician Claire Lee Chennault, daring pilots such as David Lee "Tex" Hill and George B. "Mac" McMillan led their men in desperate combat against enemy air forces and armies despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Aviators who fell in combat and survived the crash or bailout faced the terrifying reality of being lost and injured in unfamiliar territory. Historian Daniel Jackson, himself a combat-tested pilot, recounts the stories of downed aviators who attempted to evade capture by the Japanese in their bid to return to Allied territory. He reveals the heroism of these airmen was equaled, and often exceeded, by the Chinese soldiers and civilians who risked their lives to return them safely to American bases. Based on thorough archival research and filled with compelling personal narratives from memoirs, wartime diaries, and dozens of interviews with veterans, this vital work offers an important new perspective on the Flying Tigers and the history of World War II in China.
