Probably a dumb question, but...
Deborah
appeared the USA responded with an immediate retalliation against
Japan. Did that actually happen? I haven't been able to find any
confirmation that it did in Wikipedia.
Deborah
Bill
> x-no-archive: yes
> "Deborah" <deb...@not.com> wrote in message
> news:j6oko356bciep73mi...@4ax.com...
>
> But then, Pearl Harbor the movie was all about a bad romance with a pesky
> unnecessary bombing getting in the way of things.
While it wasn't "immediately" after, the Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo
took place only 4 months after Pearl Harbor which shocked the Japanese.
Bill
Deborah
wrote:
I think that's what the movie must have been portraying, but more
immediately than it actually happened. According to Wikipedia:
"The first raid on Tokyo was the Doolittle Raid of April 18, 1942,
when sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched from the USS Hornet to
attack targets including Yokohama and Tokyo and then fly on to
airfields in China. The raid did no damage to Japan's war capability
but was a significant propaganda victory for the United States.
Launched prematurely, none of the attacking aircraft reached the
designated airfields, either crashing or ditching (except for one
aircraft which landed in the Soviet Union, where the crew was
interned). Two crews were captured by the Japanese."
You see the planes crashing and ditching before reaching the airfields
in the movie. They ran out of fuel.
Thanks for the info Bill.
Deborah
chatnoir
Macarthur, in the Philippines, had a teriffic immediate failure to
respond in an adequet manner!:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=320171145561048
excerpt:
Military security in the Philippines depended upon a small contingent
of American army and naval forces and the native Philippine defense
force, developed under retired General Douglas MacArthur, a former
United States Army Chief of Staff who had been appointed by the
Commonwealth as Field Marshal of the Philippines. This small American
military presence and the underequipped and inadequately trained
Philippine forces were deficient to meet the growing threat of a
powerful and aggressive Japanese nation. Therefore, when the Japanese
seized bases in French Indochina in July 1941, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt could no longer ignore this new aggression and
recalled General Douglas MacArthur to active duty on July 26, placing
him in command of all American and Filipino military forces in the
Philippines. Appointed as Major General in command of the U.S. Armed
Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), MacArthur was promoted to Lieutenant
General the following day (and subsequently became General on December
18th). The Philippine Islands were in proximity to Japanese air and
sea routes to the Dutch East Indies and British Malaysia which had
vital raw materials and foodstuffs that the Japanese regarded
essential for their national survival since the proclamation of
American oil and scrap metal embargoes. Oil, the "lifeblood of naval
ships," was especially critical to the Imperial Japanese Navy. In
Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the Origins of the Pacific War,
Jonathan Marshall provides a comprehensive assessment of this issue of
a "resource war."[1] He takes the position that the struggle for
access to Southeast Asia's commodities (especially oil, rubber, and
tin) drew the United States into the conflict. Like Bartsch, Marshall
examines the political landscape of the era and extensively employs
archival documents and previously ignored studies that document the
dilemmas of the Roosevelt administration which hoped to avoid conflict
with Japan but, following numerous diplomatic overtures, came to see
war as inevitable (the reader will see relevance to Vietnam and
Persian Gulf conflicts in this competition for essential commodities).
Manila, capital of the Philippines, was located 2,000 miles from
Tokyo, but only 500 miles from Japanese airbases situated on the
Japanese-held island of Formosa. In the American war plan, American
and Filipino troops stationed on the main island of Luzon would
retreat to the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor which
guards the entrance to Manila Bay. Hence, the Army would attempt to
deny the Japanese access to one of the best harbors in the Far East,
but the plan was too defensive for MacArthur who wanted to fight any
invaders on the beaches with his American and Philippine troops.
However, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall encouraged MacArthur to
have faith in B-17 "Flying Fortress" bombers which the Unites States
began rushing to the Philippines. The American plan was that the B-17s
could devastate Japan's "paper cities" and bomb any Japanese invasion
fleets. December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan), the "date that will
live in infamy," saw the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor and
the disabling of the American Pacific Fleet--19 warships sunk or
damages, 340 naval and army aircraft destroyed or damages, and 2,400
military personnel and civilian deaths. Another element of the Pearl
Harbor attack was the Japanese plan to attack the Philippines and
destroy the American air and naval defenses that MacArthur had been
able to assemble.[2] This second devastating assault, which took place
ten hours after the Pearl Harbor strike, began on December 8th at
12:35 p.m. when 196 Japanese Navy bombers and fighters crippled the
largest force of Boeing four-engine B-17 "Flying Fortress" bombers
(models C and D) outside the United States and destroyed their
protective Curtis P-40E fighter plane interceptors and outmoded P-35A
aircraft at Clark and Iba Fields. The former airfield also had its
SCR-270B radar units put out of action. This sudden traumatic swift
blow would establish Japanese reign over the Philippine skies and
removed a significant barrier that stood between them and their
conquest of Southeast Asia. Was this another "sneak attack" as at
Pearl Harbor? The Japanese plan was for the Philippine attack to
commence within three and one-half hours after the assault on Pearl so
as to deny strategic time for MacArthur's command to be alerted. But
the planned early morning attack which was to occur three and one-half
hours after the Pearl Harbor strike became a mid-day attack some ten
hours afterward. In the interim, MacArthur's B-17s had scrambled to
avoid an anticipated attack but had landed to refuel and were
devastated by bombers and fighters from Japanese bases on the island
of Formosa.
The story of how General Douglas MacArthur could have been caught with
nearly all of his bombers and fighters on the ground is a part of this
illuminating volume. MacArthur had, of course, been informed of the
Pearl Harbor attack and warned of the possibility of a Japanese strike
on his military bases. These issues are the subject of this
fascinating, meticulously detailed, well-documented, yet provocative
book by William H. Bartsch. The writer holds a doctorate in economic
development from the University of London and has written or co-
authored six books and numerous articles on diverse topics including
petroleum, agricultural economics, and Iran, as well as the history of
the Pacific war. Among the latter is Doomed at the Start: American
Pursuit Pilots in the Philippines, 1941-1942 which is still in print.
[3] Bartsch's current work is an effort encompassing 25 years of
research in American and Japanese diplomatic and military documents
augmented by recently released archival materials and oral interviews
with Japanese and American participants in the attack. He writes that
his interest was stimulated initially by a volume authored by Walter
D. Edmonds, better known as a prolific fiction and nonfiction writer
of the upstate New York colonial era. Edmonds's monumental (xxiii +
532-page) They Fought with What They Had: The Story of the Army Air
Forces in the Southwest Pacific, 1941-1942, which has an introduction
by George C. Kenney, has been reprinted three times by other
publishers.[4]
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/macarthursfailures.aspx
headline:
MacArthur's Failures in the Philippines, December 1941 - March 1942
by Robert C. Daniels
The 7 December 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
by Japanese Admiral Chichi Nagumo's naval strike force suddenly and
fully thrust the United States into World War II, a war which would
last for nearly four years and cost 407,316 American military lives
and wound another 671,846.[1] Nearly every year since this attack, on
its anniversary, Pearl Harbor has been commemorated by veterans and
non-veterans alike, and rightly so.
What is not as well known is that the attack on Pearl Harbor was just
a part of the Japanese offensive planned for 7 December. The overall
plan called for simultaneous attacks not only on Pearl Harbor, but
also on several other American and Allied locations throughout the
Pacific. Most of these simultaneous attacks went as planned.[2]
However, due to bad weather over the Island of Formosa--the location of
the airbases from which the Japanese were to launch their bombers and
fighter planes against the Philippines--the initial air strike on the
American protectorate of the Philippine Islands was delayed for
several hours.
Expecting an imminent attack by the Japanese and armed with the
knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, prudent actions by those in
command in the Philippines should have alleviated the chance of a
total surprise attack in the Philippines, and the initiation of proper
defensive, if not offensive, operations could possibly have saved the
Philippines. However, the failure of General Douglas MacArthur, the
commander of United States Army Forces Far East (USAFFE), to initiate
these and other actions directly led to the defeat of the American-
Filipino forces in the Philippines during the initial phases of the
Second World War, causing thousands of American and Filipino military
and civilian personnel to suffer through years of brutal captivity at
the hands of the Japanese.
It had been well known and expected that an attack by the Japanese
against American Pacific possessions was imminent. Diplomatic
relations between the United States and Japan had been increasingly
deteriorating since the 1 July 1937 'China Incident' in which Japanese
soldiers of the Kwantung Army opened fire on Chinese National troops.
[3] On 12 December of that same year, the USS Panay, an American naval
gunboat flying an "outsized" American flag, was bombed by Japanese
Imperial Navy bombers on China's Yangtze River, killing an Italian
journalist and two American sailors.[4] Within a year, most of the
fertile portions of China had fallen to Japan[5] and by 1940 tensions
in Shanghai, China between the several European contingencies and the
Japanese, including the Americans, were close to powder keg
proportions.
As a member of the United States 4th Marine Regiment stationed in
Shanghai to protect the American interests, Corporal Edmond Babler
recalls:
During the latter months of 1940 and early 1941 we began experiencing
trouble with people infiltrating into the American sector and starting
riots. It was, incidentally, the Japanese who were creating many of
these disturbances, including the starting of strikes and setting of
fires....In the early spring months of 1941 the fires, rioting,
robberies, and murders began occurring more frequently. The daily
newspapers were filled with stories of these incidents and I could
feel the tension mount among the Chinese. They became worried and
nervous because of the fear they had for the Japanese, who would not
hesitate or stop at anything at intimidation, even resorting to murder.
[6]
Author Eric Morris writes that "The International Settlement [in
Shanghai] had been coming apart at the seams ever since the outbreak
of the war in Europe."[7] In addition, from across the Soochow Creek,
a tributary of the Whangpoo River and the same creek at which Corporal
Babler manned his guard post,[8] "the Japanese had been waging a
ceaseless campaign to undermine and intimidate the position of the
Western powers."[9]
On 26 July 1941, after hearing that 30,000 Japanese troops had landed
at Saigon and Haiphong in Indochina, United States President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt signed a decree freezing all Japanese assets in the
United States, denying the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping, and
placing a crippling embargo on the export of strategic raw materials
to Japan.[10] That same day, MacArthur was recalled to active duty and
made commander of the USAFFE.[11] With the prospect of war with Japan
in the winds, operations were soon put in motion to reinforce and
consolidate the American bases in the Pacific, including the
Philippines.
To bolster the air arm in the Philippines, in July, Major General
Henry 'Hap' H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, proposed
reinforcing the Philippine Army Air Corps by sending four heavy
bombardment groups and 2 pursuit squadrons to the Philippines. General
George C. Marshall, United States Army Chief of Staff, echoed this
concern when on 1 December he stated, "We must get every B-17 to the
Philippines as soon as possible." However, by the time hostilities
broke out 6 days later, only 107 P-40 Tomahawk fighters and 35 B-17
bombers were in place in the Philippines.[12] ... (cont)
-------
But there was an immediate response to the Japanese attack!:
http://www.ccrh.org/comm/slough/japanese.htm
headline:
On December 8, 1941, a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the
United States declared war on Japan. President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt immediately announced that all nationals and subjects of
nations at war with the U.S. were enemy aliens. Unlike European
immigrants, racially discriminatory legislation barred Japanese from
becoming U.S. citizens. When war broke out, Japanese nationals
comprised 37.3% of the Japanese American population in the U.S.
In February 1942 President Roosevelt, reacting to wartime hysteria,
issued Executive Order 9066 requiring all Japanese Americans,
including those born in the U.S., who were living on the west coast to
relocate to inland areas.
At the time of our evacuation, I was very bitter. The only country we
knew evicted us from our homes and our businesses. When the
controversy of evacuation began to emerge I was of the opinion that my
alien folks and minor brothers would be interned. But, never did I
think I would be involved since I had reached adulthood. But, my dad
said 'Shikata Ga Nai' (There is nothing we can do, so make the best of
it.) That was his philosophy. Mae Okazaki Ninomiya, Kenton resident
since 1933, Kenton History
Before transfer to inland internment camps, the army established
temporary "assembly" centers to gather and house Japanese families.
With their civil rights removed and few possessions, families such as
the Okazakis were held from May through September, 1942, at the
Portland Assembly Center on north Marine Drive. Assembly Center
prisoners experienced much discomfort, including close quarters,
theft, hunger, cold, and illness. "Today we did not have any bread for
lunch or dinner either. I did not have enough to eat," wrote Saku
Tomita on May 9, 1942. ... (cont)
Agent Smith
news:evsko3t287nd9jp8l...@4ax.com:
The name of that movie was "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," and it's worth
watching, if you're curious about the Doolittle raid. I've always
wondered if that stuff at the beginning was true, about developing a new
takeoff technique to launch bombers from a carrier. However, it's
nothing like the World War II films that we're used to, because all the
military action happens in the first third of the film. The rest of the
film just follows the pilots and crew, who were stranded in East China,
as they tried to avoid the Japanese and get out of the country.
Don't forget the Flying Tigers, whose first engagement with the Japanese
was only thirteen days after Pearl Harbor. However, it was just a
coincidence that the "battle," actually more of a turkey shoot, came so
quickly after we were attacked. They had been getting ready for about
eight months, and just happened to be in the final phases of
preparation, when The Day of Infamy arrived.
I haven't seen the movie, and I don't intend to, so I can't comment on
what its scenes might be describing.
chatnoir
left.com> wrote:
> Deborah <debo...@not.com> wrote innews:evsko3t287nd9jp8l...@4ax.com:
>
>
>
> > On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:15:12 -0500, Bill <batcave1...@comcast.net>
> > wrote:
>
> >>explorer wrote:
> >>> x-no-archive: yes
http://www.afa.org/magazine/june1999/0699tiger.asp
June 1999 Vol. 82, No. 6
Throughout the 1930s, American airmen fought the Imperial Japanese
Army in China.
Before the Flying Tigers
By Robert E. van Patten
Fully 10 years before the advent of Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers,
American pilots and airplanes were involved in an air war over China.
What was to become the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 actually began with a
Japanese incursion in Manchuria in 1931. This conflict festered for
the next six years. In that period, pilots from the US, Britain,
France, Italy, Russia, and probably Germany took part in battles in
the skies over China.
With the exception of the Italian and Russian contingents, which were
officially sanctioned by their governments, the pilots who trained the
Chinese and who fought for them were adventurers, soldiers of fortune,
and out-of-work military professionals. Most of them were Americans.
Many historians consider this hit-or-miss, bloody little air war to be
a backwater of events. Yet the battles fought by these early warriors
laid the groundwork for a massive air war over China, Southeast Asia,
the Mariana Islands, and the Japanese homeland.
The fighting history of US-built aircraft in combat inside China
actually extends back to 1930, when American-produced light bombers
were used in action against two northern warlords. In 1931, 20 light
bombing-observation airplanes were ordered from Douglas. These are
believed to have been the Type 02MC-4, large two-place, radial-engined
biplanes, which were used as trainers at the Nanking flying school.
The invasion of Manchuria by Imperial Japanese Army units in September
1931 added impetus to the strengthening of the Chinese Air Force, not
least because the Japanese attack put an end to a civil war between
factions based in Nanking and Canton. The factions included all of the
loose-cannon independent warlords except for a holdout in Fukien
province.
The First Casualty
The first American aviator to die in combat against the Japanese,
Robert Short, was killed Feb. 22, 1932. Short, a native of Tacoma,
Wash., had been hired by the L.E. Gale Co. to fly and sell Boeing
fighters in China. Relatively little is known about Short beyond the
fact that he was an ex-Air Corps pilot seeking work. Described
variously as a stunt and endurance pilot and as a soldier of fortune,
he once said in a newspaper interview that he would be happy to die in
his fighter.
Short had no official Chinese mandate to engage in air combat.
However, he flew his Boeing Model 218 with loaded guns. Then, in mid-
February 1932, he actually used them on a formation of Japanese
Nakajima A1N2s flying off the carrier Hosho. Short damaged one of the
Japanese aircraft and then disengaged. On the day of his death, Short
was ferrying his Boeing from Shanghai to Nanking when, in the vicinity
of Soochow, he encountered a group of Mitsubishi B1M two-seaters from
the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga (later to be part of the Pearl
Harbor attack force). He attacked one of the Japanese aircraft,
killing its gunner, but was trapped by the escorting A1N2s and shot
down by Japanese pilot Yoshiro Sakemago. After his death, Short was so
venerated by the Chinese people that the government erected a monument
to him at the entrance to the Hungjao aerodrome in Shanghai.
By the mid-1930s, Curtiss Hawks had become the primary fighters used
by the Chinese Air Force. Both American and Chinese pilots took Hawk
IIs into combat against nimble Japanese fighters like the Mitsubishi
A5M4 Claude.
Some idea of the limited capabilities of the CAF during this period
can be gained from one observer who noted that, in 1931, there were
only five Chinese pilots competent to fly all types of aircraft and
another 20 capable of flying trainers. By 1934, there were about 200
native Chinese military pilots, but training standards were not high,
and there is no reliable information on how many of them had actually
soloed.
In January 1932, the war brewing between China and Japan generated the
so-called Shanghai Incident. It began as a Japanese reaction to a
Chinese boycott of Japanese goods, a reaction that led to two months
of hot combat. Japanese troops assaulted the Chinese 19th Route Army
near Shanghai, and it was during this period that Short was shot down
and killed.
The Chinese Air Force fared badly, despite its use of some 200 US,
British, French, Russian, and Italian aircraft in battle. By the time
the Shanghai Truce was signed, the Nanking government had finally
become sufficiently alarmed about the shortcomings of Chinese airpower
that it moved to establish a new and modern flying school utilizing
American know-how.
In July 1932, the Chinese flying school saw the arrival of its first
American military instructor pilots. They were led by John H. Jouett,
who had been separated from the Army Air Corps as a consequence of
budget cutbacks. China accorded Jouett the rank of colonel. He arrived
in the company of other involuntarily retired pilots, all of whom
retained their reserve ranks. Each recruit was cautioned to keep his
contract with the CAF secret, part of a vain attempt to keep Japan
from figuring out what was going on. The cadre was fleshed out with
mechanics, riggers, armorers, and engineers who either traveled to
China with Jouett or were recruited by him after he arrived. About 30
American pilots were in China at this time (see box).
Among the American Pilots in China,
1932 40
James W.M. Allison
Art Chen
Claire L. Chennault
Jimmy Doolittle
E.D. Dorsey
Cecil Folmar
Franklyn G. Gay
Elwyn H. Gibbon
Harvey Greenlaw
L. Roy Holbrook
John H. Jouett
W.C. "Foxy" Kent
M.R. Knight
William C. MacDonald Christopher Mathewson
John May
George E.A. Reinburg
Harry T. Rowland
Ronald L. Sansbury
John Schweitzer
Vincent Schmidt
Ellis D. Shannon
Robert Short
Sterling Tatum
Thomas Taylor
John "Luke" Williamson
George H. Weigle
Lyman Woelpel
Randolph of the Orient
Jouett immediately set about the task of turning the CAF flying school
at Shien Chiao into an Asian Randolph Field, establishing an immediate
program to upgrade the physical plant of the base. He insisted that
all instruction be in the English language and used training aids,
tech orders, and manuals he had brought with him from the US. The
American instructors were pleased to discover that most of their CAF
cadets were motivated and intelligent, and Jouett's flying school soon
produced graduates and Instructor Pilots. This was a welcome change
from earlier training efforts in which pilot candidates were selected
on the basis of family status and connections.
Jouett annually cranked out graduating classes of 100 Chinese cadets
until the contract expired in 1935 and he returned to America. The
pace of work was nothing if not brisk. The notes kept by one American
IP noted that he commonly logged 100 hours a month of flying
instruction.
Life at the school was not easy. It suffered serious manpower losses
due to injuries compounded by incompetent medical care. In that
primitive and unsanitary environment, seemingly insignificant wounds
could become terribly infected. Jouett had to be circumspect in his
comments about the incompetence of local doctors, as this would cause
immense political problems. Another problem was that the Chinese
ground support and flying personnel were not as safety conscious as
the American instructors would have liked.
The main flying school never came under Japanese air attack, but it
was once thought to be seriously threatened by the aircraft of the
forces loyal to the rebel Fukien warlord. The intelligence warning
turned out to be false, but only after the German-trained Chinese anti-
aircraft gun crews had a field day with their new Bofors automatic
cannons. Fortunately they did not hit any of the friendly aircraft
they had mistaken for marauding Fukien airplanes.
Chinese politicians and military leaders sometimes gave Americans
"confidential assignments," some of which strayed far from military
tasks for which the pilots had been hired. Mostly, these did not
violate the Neutrality Act and did not, therefore, raise legal dangers
in the US. So strong was isolationist sentiment in the US at the time
that any pilot caught engaging in an act of war on behalf of the
Kuomintang (or any belligerent) would have been stripped of his
citizenship. As the military situation in the Far East deteriorated,
however, provisions of the Neutrality Act were far less stringently
enforced. In April 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an
executive order permitting military pilots to fly and fight abroad for
up to one year.
Even Jimmy Doolittle went to China in the 1930s. His work as a
corporate demonstration pilot took him to a Shanghai airshow, where
his acrobatic display in a Curtiss Hawk convinced the Chinese to buy
the fighter for its air force.
Sailing to Byzantium
The Americans had to cope with Chinese politics that were truly
Byzantine. Take, for example, the experience of American pilot Thomas
Taylor toward the end of his time in China. While flying money,
destined to pay Chinese troops, from a bank in Hankow to one in
Chungking, he had been approached on three occasions with a request to
load the Condor with bombs and other ordnance to resupply Nationalist
forces fighting the Communists they had cornered in Yunnan. Taylor
said that, because of the Neutrality Act, he consistently refused.
Finally, during a face-to-face meeting he had insisted upon, Madame
Chiang Kai-shek pleaded, Taylor said, stating that the Communists
would surely behead the American missionaries trapped in the area
unless he flew bombs and ammunition to the CAF units there. Taylor,
knowing that Communist troops had decapitated other missionaries, gave
in.
Taylor was not the only American mercenary pilot who encountered
Madame Chiang. In 1938, Cornelius Burmood showed up in China with two
Beechcraft Staggerwing D17Rs, intending to sell them to Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek as VIP transports. Burmood said Madame Chiang had soon
convinced him to serve as her personal pilot, but the American found
himself hauling top Chinese officers through thick flak in every
battle zone in China.
In the 1930s, China became the arena of a fierce competition to sell
fighter aircraft to the CAF. The primary contestants were Italy and
the US. The Italian candidate was the Fiat C.R.32, a fast, sturdy, and
handsome product of the mind of Celestino Rosatelli. The other was the
Curtiss Hawk, a proven design which, in the hands of Jimmy Doolittle
as corporate demonstration pilot, decisively won the competition in
May of 1933.
Doolittle resigned from the Army Air Corps in early 1930, establishing
a reputation as a top acrobatic pilot, racing pilot, and consulting
aeronautical engineer. The demonstration he put on with the Hawk at a
show in Shanghai featured an acrobatic display that included an
outside loop performed at such low altitude that even experienced
pilots observed with terror. This display had both the newspapers and
the CAF agog. From that time on, Hawks were the primary fighter series
used by the CAF.
The greatest influx of American made aircraft into the CAF came as a
result of a 1936 fund drive in celebration of the 50th birthday of
Chiang. The fund drive raised almost $1 million; it was used, in part,
to acquire 10 Boeing P-26As based at Nanking. These aircraft were
divided into two squadrons and were flown by a mix of Chinese and
mercenary pilots. The P-26s scored a success Aug. 20, 1937, when they
shot down six bombers attacking Nanking. The Chinese career of the
"Peashooters" was brief. By the end of 1937, they had suffered fatally
from a lack of spare parts and were all out of service.
Then, on July 7, 1937, the Sino-Japanese War began in earnest. The two
Asian giants had grappled for years in virtually continuous small-
scale engagements. Now, they embarked on a path of mortal combat,
commencing a conflict that was not to end until 1945, after a world
war that brought the total defeat of Imperial Japan. Shortly after the
official outbreak of hostilities, press reports in China heralded the
arrival of more than 100 hotshot American pilots and creation of the
14th Volunteer Bombardment Squadron.
Chennault Arrives
Two months earlier, Claire L. Chennault had appeared in China as an
aviation advisor to the Kuomintang. The US Army Air Corps had grounded
him because of damaged hearing, bronchitis, and low blood pressure.
Chennault had a reputation as a brilliant air combat tactician, as
well as an outstanding acrobatic pilot. Never one to suffer fools in
silence, Chennault had antagonized high-ranking Air Corps leaders--to
the extent that they shuffled him out of the way by putting him in
command of the Air Corps acrobatic exhibition team.
In early 1937, however, an American friend, then serving in China,
relayed to Chennault an offer from Madame Chiang to join the anti-
Japanese effort. Chennault was more than ready for an opportunity such
as this and arrived in China at the end of May 1937. He stayed for
eight years. He first served as aviation advisor (and de-facto air
chief of staff) to the Kuomintang in the period 1937-41. During that
time, he organized the 14th Volunteer Bombardment Squadron and, in
1941-42, the famed Flying Tigers. He finished out his tour in China as
commanding general of the US Fourteenth Air Force.
Organized under Chennault's leadership in the autumn of 1937, the 14th
VBS (which some sources refer to as the International Air Squadron)
was the first predominantly American volunteer combat group in China.
Chennault's pilot roster never numbered more than a dozen, even
counting the odd French adventurer who occasionally would show up. The
hard core of the 14th VBS pilot cadre consisted of James W.M. Allison,
a veteran of fighter operations in the Spanish Civil War, Billy
MacDonald, Luke Williamson, and George Weigle all of whom were
handpicked by Chennault. Most of the rest who scrambled to join up in
the 14th were not of the same high caliber.
The 14th VBS was stationed at Hankow in 1938 at the same time as a
large Soviet contingent. The Soviet commitment in China consisted of
twin-engined Tupolev SB-2 bombers and Polikarpov I-15 biplane and I-16
monoplane fighters. Following the demise of the 14th VBS, this Soviet
force, amounting to over 120 aircraft, played a large role in air
combat over China until they were withdrawn to deal with Japanese
incursions along the Mongolian border and the outbreak of hostilities
in Europe.
The combat history of the 14th is described only in pilot diaries. One
surviving account records that the 14th was in heavy action during the
winter of 1938. On Feb. 27, 1938, Vultee and Northrop bombers attacked
Japanese troops and convoys in the vicinity of Loyang on the Yellow
River. After bomb release, the formation's gunners administered a
heavy strafing to troop concentrations near boats drawn up on the
shore, apparently in preparation for a river crossing.
Short, but Sharp
Although the combat history of the 14th was short, it was intense. In
the five months the outfit was a formal entity, one pilot recorded
that he flew 116 sorties, which included 28 bombing missions and 15
night missions. Most of these missions were to targets in northern
China and involved round-trip flying times as high as nine hours.
Bombers weren't very fast in those days.
The 14th VBS was disbanded March 22, 1938, and, though it was gone,
some of its pilots soldiered on in China. A letter written by
Chennault records that, on April 29, 1938, his pilots participated
with Soviet airplanes and pilots in an action that enticed the
Japanese to fall into a trap prepared long in advance. It must have
been some fight since eight enemy bombers and 13 fighters went down,
accompanied by the loss of nine CAF fighters. Pilots of two of those
nine CAF aircraft bailed out safely and two others made successful
forced landings. This "fur ball" included 60 fighters in the Chinese
force against 12 bombers and 25 fighters in the Japanese force.
By the spring of 1941 it was time for the early warriors to pass the
torch. The American Volunteer Group later known as the "Flying Tigers"
was well on its way, beginning with men like Gregory "Pappy" Boyington
and its established ace, A.J. "Ajax" Baumler, who, at the age of 22,
had made five kills over Spain.
When America finally entered the war in late 1941, US military
officers learned that the CAF had preserved some Chinese territory;
such territory served as a sanctuary for at least a few of the
Doolittle Raiders after their April 1942 raid on Tokyo. Soon after
came the establishment of the China Air Task Force and the disbanding
of the Flying Tigers. The Task Force was, in its turn, superseded by
Fourteenth Air Force and from that point on, the air war in China
accelerated in tempo and scope.
The efforts of these early aviators in China prior to the Flying
Tigers helped the Kuomintang hang on long enough, and retain enough
territory, to be able to provide the foundation for the major anti-
Japan air campaigns of the early and mid-1940s. Without the skill and
sacrifice of these obscure pilots, it is probable that there would
have been no saga of the airborne supply line over the Hump and the
history of the Fourteenth Air Force campaign would have been bloodier
and more protracted.