Claire Chennault recruited, organized, and commanded the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known as the Flying Tigers, a group of intrepid American fighter pilots who flew, as soldiers of fortune, for the Chinese Air Force in World War II and proved highly effective against far superior Japanese forces. After the AVG was absorbed into the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), Chennault was assigned to command the newly created U.S. Fourteenth Air Force.

Chennault was born in Commerce, Texas, and joined the army infantry as a first lieutenant in 1917. Two years later, he transferred to the Signal Corps for flight training. After earning his wings, he was assigned as the commander of a pursuit squadron. Operating in the infancy of American military aviation, Chennault became an avid student of fighter strategy and tactics. He attended the Air Corps Tactical School in 1931, becoming, after graduation, an instructor there until 1936. He emerged from his study an advocate of the strategic importance of fighters, a doctrine that was vehemently opposed by the so-called bomber mafia of the interwar years. United States Army Air Corps planners relied on the bomber not only as the major air weapon, but as the only air weapon of strategic importance. Fighter development as well as fighter doctrine were relegated to supporting roles, and, discouraged, Chennault retired from the army in 1937, having achieved no higher rank than captain.

In the year of his retirement, with the Sino-Japanese War in progress, Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, the influential wife of Nationalist China's generalissimo Chiang-Kai-shek, recruited Chennault to organize and train the American Volunteer Group--the Flying Tigers. Their aircraft were obsolescent P-40s, markedly inferior to Japanese fighter aircraft. Chennault recognized this but used the shortcomings of the P-40 to his advantage, choosing and training AVG pilots who were willing to learn and to develop superior tactics that would more than compensate for the limitations of their aircraft. The result was a cadre of splendid, creative, and courageous aviators. . .

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