American Volunteer Group
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American Volunteer Group
Known as the ‘Flying Tigers’, because of the bared fangs painted on the noses of their fighters, this formation was the brainchild of Captain Chennault, a retired US Army Air Corps officer who was an adviser to the Chinese government and a colonel in its air force.
In April 1941 the Chinese agreed to Chennault's scheme that a number of American squadrons, manned by volunteer pilots from the US Army and Navy on one-year contracts, could operate in China against the invading Japanese. About 100 pilots and 200 ground staff were recruited and the British made an air base at Toungoo in Burma available for training, which began in September 1941. By November three squadrons, equipped with Tomahawk (P40) fighters, had been formed there, and Chennault was busy teaching them the tactics he had evolved from years of studying Japanese methods: stay in pairs; don't dogfight; use the Tomahawk's superior diving speed to make one pass, shoot, and break away (, 2).
Once Japan was at war with the Allies, Chiang Kai-shek kept a previous promise that the AVG could be employed in Burma if that country were attacked, and one squadron was used to defend Rangoon at the start of the Burma campaign while the other two were stationed in the Chinese city of Kunming from where they patrolled the Burma Road. All three squadrons were soon in action when Japanese bombers attempted to raid Kunming on 20 December 1941, and three days later 60 Japanese bombers attacked Rangoon's docks and the AVG's airfield at Mingaladon. Two AVG aircraft were shot down during these encounters, and two more were lost during a raid on Christmas Day, but the AVG and RAF squadrons accounted for 30 Japanese aircraft between them despite being heavily outnumbered.
On 4January 1942 about 30 Japanese fighters tried to break through Rangoon's air defences but were driven off by the AVG, and on 23 January they launched their main effort to overwhelm the aircraft defending the city. Between that date and 29 January there was continuous fighting above Rangoon in which about 50 Japanese aircraft were probably destroyed while the RAF lost ten and the AVG two. Another, and final, attempt to overwhelm the defences was made on 25 and 26 February, but out of a force of 170 bombers and fighters about 34 were destroyed, most of them by the AVG. This victory enabled ships carrying reinforcements to arrive safely and for the evacuation of Rangoon to proceed without interference. But by 27 February Allied operational air strength had been reduced to only ten fighters, many of which had been damaged or lacked spares, and after the Japanese entered Rangoon on 8March the surviving AVG aircraft were withdrawn to Magwe. Eventually they joined the other two squadrons in Kunming and were later deployed against Japanese bombers attacking Chinese cities.
It had been hoped that the induction of the AVG into Chennault's new command, the China Air Task Force, which was to be part of Tenth USAAF, would proceed smoothly. But when their contracts ran out in July 1942 only five pilots stayed on though another 20 agreed to remain until replacements could be found.
Total AVG losses amounted to 50 aircraft and 9 pilots for 286 Japanese aircraft destroyed. .
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American Volunteer Group
The American Volunteer Groups were volunteer air units organized by the United States government to aid the Nationalist government of China against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The only unit to actually see combat was the 1st AVG, popularly known as the Flying Tigers.
In an effort to aid the Nationalist government of China and to put pressure on Japan, President Franklin Roosevelt in April 1941 authorized the creation of a clandestine "Special Air Unit" consisting of three combat groups equipped with American aircraft and staffed by aviators and technicians to be recruited from the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps for service in China. The program was fleshed out in the winter of 1940–1941 by Claire Lee Chennault, then an air advisor to the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, and Lauchlin Currie, a young economist in the Roosevelt White House. They envisioned a small air corps of 500 combat aircraft, although in the end, the number was reduced to 200 fighters and 66 light bombers.[1]
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1st AVG (Flying Tigers)
Main article: Flying Tigers
The 1st American Volunteer Group were recruited starting on 15 April 1941, when an unpublished executive order was signed by President Roosevelt.[2]A total of 100 P-40Bs were obtained from Curtiss-Wright by convincing the British Government to take a later batch of more advanced P-40s in exchange.[2] The group assembled at a Royal Air Force airfield in Burma by November 1941 for training, where it was organized into three squadrons and established a headquarters.[3] The Flying Tigers did not go into combat until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.[2] Under Chennault's command, the Flying Tigers became famous in the defense of Burma and China.[2] It was replaced by the U.S. Army 23rd Fighter Group in July 1942.[4]
2nd AVG
In the fall of 1941, the 2nd American Volunteer Group was equipped with 33 Lockheed Hudson (A-28) and 33 Douglas DB-7 (A-20) bombers originally built for Britain but acquired by the U.S. Army as part of the Lend-Lease program passed earlier in the year. The Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, fronting for the Chinese and American governments, recruited 82 pilots and 359 ground crewmen from the U.S. Army in the fall of 1941, and an undetermined number, including one pilot, actually sailed for Asia aboard Noordam and Bloemfontein of the Java-Pacific line. Other pilots reported to San Francisco, and were scheduled to depart aboard the Lockheed Hudsons on 10 December. The Douglas DB-7s, meanwhile, were to have gone by freighter to Africa, where they would be assembled and ferried to China. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor caused the program to be aborted. The vessels at sea were diverted to Australia, the aircraft were taken back into American service, and most or all of the personnel likewise rejoined the military, either in Australia or in the U.S.
3rd AVG
The 3rd AVG was to have been a fighter group like the 1st. Because the 2nd AVG had been recruited from the U.S. Army, recruiting for the 3rd was to have been limited to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, starting in the early months of 1942. These plans too were abandoned as a result of the U.S. entry into World War II.
References
Notes
- ^ Ford 2007, Ch. 2.
- ^ a b c d Rossi, J.R. "History: The Flying Tigers - American Volunteer Group - Chinese Air Force." AVG: American Volunteer Group, The Flying Tigers, 1998. Retrieved: 4 July 2011.
- ^ Rossi, J.R. "A Flying Tiger's Story by Dick Rossi." Planes and Pilots Of World War Two, 1995. Retrieved: 4 July 2011.
- ^ Older, Chuck. "Hammerhead Stalls and Snap Rolls: Written in the mid-1980s." (Tales of the Tigers: The Flying Tigers Tell some of their stories) AVG: American Volunteer Group, The Flying Tigers, 1998. Retrieved: 4 July 2011.
Bibliography
- Armstrong, Alan. Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Guilford, Delaware: Lyons Press, 2006. ISBN 1-59228-913-4.
- Ford, Daniel. Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941–1942. Washington, DC: HarperCollins|Smithsonian Books, 2007. ISBN 0-06-124655-7.
- Leonard, Royal. I Flew for China: Chiang Kai-Shek's Personal Pilot New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1942.
- Schaller, Michael. The U.S. Crusade in China, 1938–1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-231-04455-0.
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