![]() The new organization was designated the American Volunteer group.ĭespite the small size of the proposed group, consisting of a few squadrons averaging a total of 60 aircraft, getting the planes needed proved difficult. An executive order was issued allowing members of the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy to resign in order to join the group. pilots and support personnel to work directly for the Chinese government. Roosevelt authorized Chennault to recruit U.S. In the end it took direct presidential intervention to make the idea a reality. Many senior military leaders totally opposed the idea, seeing it as draining experienced and vital personnel during a time of large scale armed buildup. President Franklin Roosevelt and key members of his administration were sympathetic to the Chinese cause.Īs Chennault saw it, war between the United States and Japan was all but inevitable, and unlike many of his former colleagues, believed that China could serve as a base for later offensive operations against the Japanese home islands. Chennault had conceived of raising a small, elite air force of American personnel to fight the Japanese directly. The massive destruction and loss of life would presage the terrible destruction wreaked on Japan by American bombing years later, with biological weapons taking the place of nuclear ones.įaced with the utter collapse of an already Chinese inferior air force, Chennault was sent back to the United States with a Chinese delegation in 1941 to arrange for as many planes and as much logistical support as possible. When the second Sino-Japanese war broke out later that year, Japanese air superiority let them bomb China with virtual impunity. A former tactical instructor, he took an offer to help train and survey the Chinese Air Force. Army Air Corps in 1937 over dissatisfaction with his promotion prospects. His decision to bring in American experts to help led to the formation of one of the famed air groups of the war, the Flying Tigers.Ĭaptain Claire Chennault had resigned from the U.S. The Chinese air force was in terrible shape, beset with a lack of trained pilots and aircraft, and the war brewing with the highly professional military of Imperial Japan in 1937 made reforms a priority. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek knew he had a problem.
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