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The 1st American Volunteer Group

Squadron Leader Arvid Olson in the cockpit of his Tomahawk at Kyedaw airfield late in 1941. The Tomahawk has been painted in full AVG regalia, and has both the Curtiss-supplied ring sight and a homemade optical sight inside the windscreen. Olson's 1st Squadron had wing guns equipped with 7.9mm Colts built for the Asian market, while other squadrons had .303-cal. Brownings.

The Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company was owned by the Chinese government but controlled by the Pawleys, Bill and Edward, through a holding company called Intercontinent. This operation could easily be expanded to handle the China-bound Tomahawks. Ships comprised in the program would all be flown by American reserve officers and maintained by American technicians and mechanics. They would be under the command of an American reserve officer, Captain Chennault, directly under Chiang Kai-shek.

Central's chief recruiter was Richard Aldworth, who turned out to be bedridden, so others did the legwork. As it happened, a flight of Zeros had strafed the Chinese Air Force training field at Yunnan-yi toward the end of 1940, prompting its American check pilot to sail for home. This was C.B. "Skip" Adait. Chennault signed him on as principal Army recruiter, while Rutledge Irvine of Intercontinent looked for Navy pilots. In almost every case, the job they offered was pilot-officer, paying $600 a month and described as the equivalent of Army lst Lieutenant. An exceptionally qualified pilot might be hired as flight leader, paying $650 a month and ranking with Captain. There was also the rank of squadron leader, paying $700 and equivalent to Major, but nobody was recruited as such.

Even pilot-officer (later changed to wingman) was a heady offer. Most of the pilots approached by Central were serving at the lowest commissioned level - 2nd Lieutenant in the Army or Marines, Ensign in the Navy - and one was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, which still had enlisted pilots. Signing up with Central thus meant instant promotion and a salary double or triple what he was earning in U.S. service. Some mention was also made of a $500 bounty for each Japanese plane shot down, but in such vague terms that few volunteers put any faith in it.

Central signed up 100 combat pilots but only 99 sailed for Asia. (Missing from the final roster was Lieutenant Albert Baumler, credited with shooting down four German and Italian planes in the Spanish Civil War; he signed up but was refused a passport because he had violated earlier travel documents by flying for a foreign government.) Reflecting Commander Irvine's early start, and perhaps the more enthusiastic support of Secretary Knox, 59 of the successful volunteers were Navy men, and seven more came from the Marines, while the Army supplied only 33. The contract they signed was a masterpiece of circumlocution:

WHEREAS, the Employer ... operates an aircraft manufacturing, operating and repair business in China, and
WHEREAS, the Employer desires to employ the Employee in connection with its business and said Employee desires to enter into such employment,
NOW THEREFORE. . . The Employer agrees to employ the Employee to render such services and perform such duties as the Employer may direct and the Employee agrees to enter the service of the Employer who, in consideration of the Employee's faithfully and diligently performing said duties and rendering said services, will pay to the Employee a salary of __________ dollars United States currency.

Central would provide his passport, trainfare to California, food and lodging while there, $100 in walking-around money, a ship to Asia, and $500 for return transportation at the end of his tour, which would last one year ''unless sooner terminated as hereinafter provided." If he were disabled or killed, Central promised to pay six months' salary to him or his heirs, but there was no provision for what would happen if he were taken prisoner-a significant omission, as it turned out. Nor was there any provision for him to quit, though he could be fired for insubordination, malingering, revealing confidential information, drug or alcohol abuse, or "illness or other disability incurred not in line of duty and as a result of Employee's own misconduct"-i.e., venereal disease.

Tiger Sharks of China The American Volunteer Group (AVG), or "Flying Tigers" as they came to be known, flew against the Japanese before the U.S. was officially involved in WWII. After their disbandment on July 4, 1942, the pilots of the AVG were allowed to continue flying if they joined the U.S. Army Air Force's 23rd Fighter Group. One such pilot, David Lee "Tex" Hill, is shown here standing in front of his Mustang with some of his ground crew at the airfield in Kweilin, China after returning from a mission. 24"x 18" limited edition, numbered print is signed by the artist and three members of the 23rd Fighter Group, including "Tex" Hill.

The Army Air Corps assigned more than 1,000 ground personnel to a fighter group, but Central's quota was 200, and only 186 sailed for Asia. Most were Army men, who were paid $300 a month, or about three times what a buck sergeant earned in 1941.

Skip Adair agreed to become Chennault's supply officer when his recruiting chores were done. Then somebody at the State Department suggested he look up Paul Frillmann, a Lutheran missionary who had played left field for him on July 4, 1938, and who was now living in Chicago. Frillmann flew to Washington, reported to Chennault at the Chinese embassy, and was forthwith appointed chaplain and officer in charge of recreation, physical training, and liaison with the local populace. That settled, Chennault sat him down to make a list of everything needed by 300 Americans in China for two years, omitting what could be purchased locally. Frillmann did so, ordered the stuff from Washington wholesalers, and returned to Chicago that same night, bewildered and a bit resentful at the way Chennault had wrung him out and sent him on his way. Indeed, he was a paradigm of the Chennault technique, whose distinguishing characteristic was to grab what lay at hand and to work a miracle with it. "He was a genius," mused Joe Alsop, who himself would become a staff officer for Chennault, "at doing things with string and chewing gum. "

In June, the first contingent of technicians reported to the youngest Pawley brother, Eugene, in Los Angeles. Paul Frillmann chaperoned them on President Pierce, her name painted over and her staterooms crammed with reinforcements for the Philippines. The senior Army officer was annoyed by the former enlisted men who had been given cots in the first-class lounge; he wanted them to drill with his troops, to stand for inspection, to snap to attention when he passed by. "Go away, soldier," they growled at him. "We're free men." In Honolulu, they tried to smuggle women aboard. In Singapore, they whistled at British customs officials in their tropical shorts. Quartered in the Raffles Hotel, they played golf in their rooms. One man dunked the secretary of the English Club in the swimming pool. There was also a bogus beauty contest, for which prizes were promised but none awarded. "Drove the Limeys wild down there," one of them fondly recalled. "Bunch of crazy Americans, bringing all the native girls into the Class A dining room and drinking all their gin and tonic and everything." Somebody was indiscreet enough to leak their assignment to a reporter, who filed this dispatch on July 9:

Thirty United States airplane mechanics and maintenance men arrived here today from New York, and will go to Rangoon next week en route to [China], where they will aid the Chinese Air Force. It was understood that a number of American planes of various types already had arrived at Rangoon and that more were en route there.

The main contingent - 34 pilots and 86 technicians - meanwhile gathered in San Francisco. They wore civilian clothes, and their passports described them as hardware clerk, radio announcer, acrobat, rancher. . . . Chennault's passport identified him as "executive" - close enough in the circumstances. He reached San Francisco on July 7, the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of the Sino Japanese War. He paid a courtesy call on the Chinese consul, inspected the quarters on the Java Pacific liner Jagerrfontein, and conferred at the Mark Hopkins with Captain Aldworth and Major Gentry. (Among other concerns, they were dubious about sending two women nurses on a ship full of lusty males. The nurses prevailed, but were given an above-decks cabin to keep them out of harm's way.) Then he boarded the Pan Am Clipper for the overnight flight to Honolulu. It was a glorious moment for him-a flight instructor no longer but the almost certain commander of the 1st American Volunteer Group, as the fighter force had come to be called.

The pilots and technicians sailed next morning, July 8, which was foggy and cold. Charles Mott, formerly a divebomber pilot on Saratoga, had been put in charge of the contingent. At 26, he was older than most of the pilots and (in violation of Navy regulations) a married man. "When I left my darling wife at ten [a.m.]," he wrote in his diary after Jagerrfontein motored under the Golden Gate bridge, "I was trying to be casual . . . but just about managed to do it without breaking down. Words can't tell of the void this parting has left in me." At sea, Mott did his best to keep discipline, policing the below-decks crap game, offering a bridge tournament as an alternative, and leading religious services each Sunday in the ship's dining room.

After Honolulu, Jagerrfontein was joined by the cruisers Salt Lake City and Northampton. The escort was the work of Lauchlin Currie, who feared thatJapan might arrange to have the airmen kidnapped. The Navy squirmed a bit, urging that they be distributed among several ships if Currie were concerned for their safety, but gave in when he explained that they were already at sea. The warships escorted Jagerrfontein as she swung south of the equator to avoid the Marshall and Caroline Islands - former German colonies seized by the Japanese during World War I. Off Australia, they were replaced by Java, a Dutch cruiser, which escorted the liner through the Dutch East Indies to Singapore. She docked on August 11, all her brandy drunk, along with 5,000 bottles of Coca-Cola.

En route to Chongqing, Chennault spent three days in Hong Kong, where he recruited Harvey Greenlaw and William Davis, former aircraft salesmen, as staff officers for the 1st AVG. Then, on July 18, he flew up to Chongqing, arriving in the company of 27 Mitsubishi bombers as they made their unopposed runs over the Chinese capital. The planes were new to him: twin-engined G4Ms (later called "Betty" by Allied pilots) with nearly twice the bomb load of the familiar G3M Nells. They came and went without any opposition except from antiaircraft guns. Only a handful had been shot down that summer of 1941, and just one Zero - but that sufficed to blow the secret of Japan's deadly new fighter. From the wreckage, Chinese intelligence officers drew up a remarkably accurate data sheet for the Mitsubishi A6M, along with a set of recognition sketches. Major James McHugh at the U.S. embassy had already sent this information back to Washington, where like Chennault's description it was carefully distributed and altogether ignored. McHugh also gave a copy to Chennault, so his pilots would know what they were up against.

Wu Chia Ba Airport at Kunming was still being hardened against the monsoon rains, so a training program there would be a risky proposition. The Pawleys had a solution-they always had a solution. Edward persuaded the British to loan him a new RAF airfield in southern Burma, thus putting the training base close to his assembly operation at Mingaladon Airport. At Toungoo, Chennault would be able to train his squadrons without fear of attack, while the Chinese would not have to make space on the Burma Road for aviation supplies, and the RAF would have transformed a liability into an asset. The British had no immediate use for Kyedaw airfield: their only planes in Burma were the dozen Bristol Blenheim bombers of RAF 60th Squadron, which were more conveniently and comfortably accommodated at Mingaladon Airport. By loaning it to the Americans, they would have a fighter group handy in case war broke out in Asia. The British commander apparently discussed this possibility with the Chinese: "There was an understanding," he wrote in 1942, that if Japan attacked British possessions, "part, or the whole, of this American Volunteer Group would be detailed for the defence of Burma."

Toungoo was situated in the broad valley of the Sittang River, 175 miles north of Rangoon. Its main street rumbled day and night with trucks bound for China. To the west lay a maze of narrow, twisting alleys lined with bamboo shops and huts, including a liquor store and a building that purported to be a hotel but in reality was a brothel. Toungoo's most notable building was the sprawling, red-brick railroad station, containing the town's only restaurant. The population was 23,000, mostly ethnic Burmans, but including a few thousand Indians, some half-wild Karen tribesmen, and a few Western missionaries. Lording it over them were a dozen British families who lived on the outskirts of town, and whose menfolk were Army officers or managers for the MacGregor Teak Company. Off hours, they gathered at the Gymkhana Club for golf, tennis, billiards, and Scotch and soda, and at dinner parties given by the wives in strict rotation. The gentlemen wore black ties, and afterward the ladies left them to smoke cigars and discuss world affairs, which they did with unquenchable optimism. Sunday morning, they all met again at St. Luke's, Church of England, which had more headstones in its graveyard than worshippers in its pews.

Six miles north of town - past the hulks of trucks that had broken down on the road to China - past a pagoda guarded by statues of chintha, the ferocious seated lion of Burmese mythology - was the side road to Kyedaw airfield. Eastward lay the Karen Hills, a sawtooth mountain wall, blue with haze and marking the Burma-Thailand border. Away from the squalor of Toungoo, the countryside had a wild tropical beauty, with gnarly trees and fantastic flowering shrubs.

The RAF had outfitted Kyedaw with a 4,000-foot asphalt runway, a control tower, hangars, office buildings, and - a mile from the field - barracks built from teak and bamboo according to the architectural fashion of Southeast Asia. That is, they had no interior partitions, and the outside walls were open from waist height to the eaves, with the sunny side sheltered by a veranda. There were no screens, so the occupants slept under mosquito netting, on slat-bottomed cots sternly labeled ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE. Ceiling fans stirred the air if the electric generator was functioning. The roofs were bamboo thatch, and the latrines were open pits with urine buckets on the side, attended by Indian "sweepers."

Chennault inspected Kyedaw on July 26. He was not impressed, but he had no alternative, so he approved Ed Pawley's arrangements. In Washington, meanwhile, Franklin Roosevelt approved the formation of the 2nd AVG, whose mission was to include "the incendiary bombing of Japan." Poor George Marshall. It was like keeping a cat off the couch: no matter how many times he put the Special Air Unit down, it jumped up again.

By December 1941, nine more squadrons had been promised for the Special Air Unit. They included the 1st AVG already in Burma; the 2nd AVG, equipped with Lockheed Hudsons and Douglas Bostons, whose pilots were already signed up and whose technicians were already at sea; the 3rd AVG, to be equipped with Republic Lancers; a Brewster Buffalo squadron and a Bristol Blenheim squadron from the RAF; and a squadron of Vultee Vanguards flown by Chinese pilots. The reinforcements were glimmering on the morning of December 7/8, leaving Chennault to defend Burma and western China with the 60-odd Tomahawks and 80-odd pilots then at Kyedaw airfield. History would know them as the Flying Tigers.

Daniel Ford. American Hawks for China. Journal, American Aviation Historical Society. Winter 1993.

Flying Tiger to Air Commando This is an enlisted man's story of over twenty years of service to his country. From enlistment in the Army Air Corps as a Private at age 19 to his retirement as a Master Sergeant at age 44, his unusual tale is a fascinating look at the experiences of a hard-working armorer for the Flying Tigers who went on to became a gunner in B-25s and B-29s in WWII and Korea.

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