Flying Tigers

The Flying Tigers was the popular nickname of a unit of American civilian mercenary aviators in the service of China officially designated the American Volunteer Group (AVG) and led by a retired U.S. Army Air Corps captain, Claire L. Chennault. The AVG, or Flying Tigers, had its origin in the 1940–41 authorization by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of an unofficial and covert U.S. air force to fight on behalf of China in the Sino-Japanese War, which had begun in 1937. The American Volunteer Group was planned to consist of two fighter groups and one medium bomber group. By presidential directive, 100 Tomahawk II-B fighters, equivalent to the Curtiss P-40C pursuit craft, were diverted from a British order and sent to equip the two fighter groups. Also, 100 U.S. military pilots and 200 enlisted technicians, all eager to see combat action, resigned from the U.S. Army Air Corps to accept private employment as civilian mercenaries with the AVG. The first group was designated the First American Volunteer Group and put under Chennault's command. He trained his personnel in neutral Burma. Events soon overtook the First AVG, which was not committed to combat until after the Battle of Pearl Harbor had thrust the United States into the war in December 1941. Entry into the conflict brought the cancellation of the planned second fighter group as well as the bomber group, but the First AVG continued to fly, under Chennault, as what the public came to call the "Flying Tigers." AVG pilots painted vivid rows of shark teeth on either side of the supercharged P–40's large, distinctive air scoop. Journalists saw this as a tiger's mouth, not a shark's, and christened the group accordingly. The name conveyed the aggressive spirit that was in critically short supply among the Allies during the early days of the Pacific war. The Flying Tigers played an important role in defending Burma until the Japanese routed the Allies in May 1942. Later in the year, transferred to China, the AVG was instrumental in holding western China until reinforcements reached the Nationalist government. Always outnumbered and operating in isolation and on a shoestring, AVG fliers were nevertheless credited with shooting down 297 Japanese aircraft; 23 AVG pilots were killed or captured. Formally disbanded on July 4, 1942, the AVG was instantly merged into the 23rd Pursuit Group of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF). Only five AVG pilots immediately accepted induction into the new USAAF unit while they were in China, but many others subsequently rejoined the U.S. military. The exploits of the Flying Tigers were so colorful, as was their irascible leader, that it is often difficult to separate mythology from fact, and, indeed, some recent historians have concluded that the record of Flying Tiger victories was inflated. Be this as it may, it is beyond dispute that the AVG was highly effective against Japanese air and ground forces during the winter of 1941–42, when the Allies could offer very little creditable opposition to the Japanese juggernaut. Their performance slowed the relentless Japanese advance and took a heavy toll in enemy aircraft and among ground forces while simultaneously doing much to lift the morale of all the Allies during a time when the news from Asia and the Pacific was unremittingly bleak.