By the summer of 1941, Japan and China had been at war for over ten years. The cream of the Chinese Air Force had been destroyed by superbly trained Japanese pilots flying superior aircraft, and China turned to foreign mercenaries to continue the battle in the air. The bulk of these were Russian “volunteers” sent in accordance with Stalin’s policy of supporting the Kuomintang in order to keep Japan bogged down in China.
The supply of Russian pilots dried up abruptly with the German invasion of Russia in the spring of 1941. American sentiments were increasingly turned against the Japanese, but the American public was still strongly isolationist. President Roosevelt therefore agreed to the suggestion of Chiang Kai-shek’s American air advisor, Claire Chennault, to secretly send American pilots to help the Chinese. Chennault was authorized to recruit Army and Navy fliers, who resigned their commissions (with a secret understanding that they would be restored to former rank if the U.S. joined the war) to fly under Chinese colors. This was the origin of the American Volunteer Group.
As might have been anticipated, many air commanders used this as an opportunity to rid themselves of troublemakers. As a result, the AVG suffered from serious discipline problems, which was spun into a legend of hard-drinking, straight-shooting, fighting airmen. Chennault largely ignored what a man did on the ground so long as he was ready when it came time to take to the air. (It was later claimed that one of Chennault’s most famous pilots, “Pappy” Boyington, flew better drunk than sober.) Chennault began rigorous training of his pilots, some 100 strong, at the British airbase at Toungoo in central Burma.
Before Chennault was able to commit the AVG to combat in China, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the U.S. was in the war. The AVG pilots were promptly committed to combat in Burma, which was invaded by the Japanese in early 1942. They scored well against the Japanese Army pilots, who were flying inferior Nates and were not as superbly trained as their Navy counterparts in the Pacific. But the AVG was unable to stem the tide until the Chinese armies retreated across the Salween River. AVG pilots put the bridge across the Salween out of action and the Japanese broke off the pursuit.
The Army Air Forces subsequently designated the AVG as 14 Air Force, restoring the military standing and ranks of the former Air Force pilots and promoting Chennault to brigadier general. Not all the pilots were happy about being back in the Air Forces. In addition, many AVG pilots had come from the Navy or Marines and found themselves in limbo. There was a fair amount of reshuffling, and when the dust cleared the original AVG was no more. 14 Air Force continued to have important successes under Chennault, but it was now a conventional Army Air Force organization, albeit with an unusually colorful history and body of tradition.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2006-2008 by Kent G. Budge. Index