"He managed to get Roosevelt to allow some of our military pilots - that was the original AVG - to resign their commissions in the U.S. Soong, a Chinese official who was also Chiang's brother-in-law, a deal was worked out to allow China to buy 100 American-made Curtiss P-40 fighter planes.Īs for who would fly and maintain them, many of the pilots in China's existing air force were poorly trained. But President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was concerned about the prospect of Japan defeating China and turning its sights on the U.S.Ĭhennault traveled back to the U.S., pulling what strings he could to get planes. He became its de facto commander.Ĭlaire Lee Chennault first went to China to survey the Chinese Air Force's readiness, and stayed on to lead the creation of the American Volunteer Group.īy 1940, after losing backing from the Soviets, China desperately needed more planes. Once the war with Japan officially broke out that summer, China hired Chennault as an adviser to its air force. "Chennault said, 'You have 500, but you only have 91 that fly.' That's how far behind they were in aviation." "Chiang Kai-shek thought he had 500 airplanes," says Nell Chennault Calloway, who is Chennault's granddaughter and CEO of the Chennault Aviation & Military Museum in Monroe, La. Chennault was asked to come survey the readiness of its fleet. Army aviator, instructor and tactician, once described by Time magazine as "lean, hard-bitten, taciturn." Health problems and disputes with his superiors pushed him into retirement from his position with the Army Air Corps in 1937, at age 43.īut he quickly got a lucrative job offer with the Chinese Air Force, which was operating under Chiang's Nationalist government. China, however, had little air power to fend off Japanese bombings.Įnter Claire Lee Chennault, a U.S. The two sides came to a truce to fight against the Japanese. But in Asia, China and Japan had been at war since 1937.Ĭhina was already fighting its own civil war between the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and Communist forces. In the West, 1939 is considered the start of World War II. In 1941, Japan was on the offensive in its war against China. Japanese troops rush in to attack Chinese soldiers at Changsha in 1939.
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