Chennault, Claire Lee (1887-1975)

U.S. Air Force

Chennault was born in Texas and worked his way through college prior to graduating from Officers' Training Camp during the First World War. Denied a posting overseas, he took aviation training and accepted a Regular Army commission in 1920. A strong advocate of fighter aircraft, he was one of the few regular Air Corps officers to challenge the “bomber cult” during the 1930’s.  He was retired from the Air Corps in 1937, at age 44, ostensibly for deafness.  He subsequently became the principal air advisor to the Chinese Republican Air Force, and organized an effective air warning system based on observers using telephones.  Under his leadership, the Chinese inflicted heavy losses on Japanese bombers, until the introduction of the Zero fighter tipped the balance decisively in favor of the Japanese.

In 1940 Chennault returned to the United States and, with the covert support of the Roosevelt administration, organized the American Volunteer Group, later known to the public as the Flying Tigers.  The group was still training in Burma when war broke out. Moved to China, it became 14 Air Force on 20 March 1943, and Chennault was promoted to brigadier general.

Chennault’s flyers were remarkably successful against the Japanese Army pilots in China, inflicting heavy casualties at modest cost.  Their greatest accomplishment was probably forcing the Japanese to scale back their aerial bombardment of Chungking.  Chennault’s fighter tactics were carefully studied by U.S. Navy officers such as Jimmy Thatch, who improved on them and used them with success against the Japanese Navy in the Pacific.

But Chennault was not without his blind spots.  He got along very poorly with his superiors, particularly “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell.  Stilwell was a crusty old infantry officer who despised Chiang Kai-shek, while Chennault was one of the few foreigners that Chiang trusted. This was in part because Chennault had allied himself with Madame Chiang, who was made honorary commander of the Flying Tigers. Stilwell rejected Chennault’s claim that air power alone could defeat the Japanese in China, arguing that the Chinese Army must first be brought up to acceptable standards of training and equipment. But Chennault had Chiang’s ear, and succeeded in getting priority assigned to supplies for 14 Air Force. 

The Japanese Ichi-go offensive of 1944 largely vindicated Stilwell’s position.  The Japanese Army was easily able to overrun Chennault’s airfields against feeble ground resistance in spite of the air support provided by Chennault’s flyers.

Chennault also got along poorly with Clayton Bissel, Stilwell’s air chief, who commanded the rival 10 Air Force in India.  Chennault’s flyers went so far as to train a Chinese coolie (who had no understanding of English) to stand at the end of the runway and shout “P--- on you Bissell!” every time a 10 Air Force plane landed.

Chennault made fantastic claims for the potential of air power, as when he told President Roosevelt that with twelve heavy and thirty medium bombers he could bring Japan to her knees.  His flyers’ claims were also extravagant, but there is no doubt that their own combat losses were relatively modest and that they hurt the Japanese.  Given that the Japanese pilots in China were Army pilots rather than the superbly trained Navy pilots encountered in the Pacific, and that they were flying inferior aircraft such as the Nate rather than the Zero, it would be unsurprising if Japanese losses were relatively heavy.

Chennault was so good at making enemies that by 1945 Madame Chiang was about the only supporter he had left.  “Hap” Arnold forced Chennault to retire in August 1945, just as the war was ending, whereupon Chennault helped organize an airline in China that became a front for CIA efforts to intervene in the Chinese civil war.

Service record

References

Boatner (1996)

Dupuy et.al. (1992)

Hastings (2007)

Tuchman  (1972)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007-2008 by Kent G. Budge.  Index