'War history as it should be written!' -- The Hook
Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and
His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
"During the dark, early days of World War II, when the Imperial
Japanese army, navy, and air force were running roughshod over
Asia and the Pacific, it seemed that nothing could stop them.
Only a small band of American mercenary fliers based in Burma and
known as the Flying Tigers, led by a leather-faced fighter named
Claire Chennault, seemed able to challenge and defeat the
Japanese....
"The exciting story of this legendary fighting force that wore
American uniforms but Chinese insignia is told in Daniel Ford's
definitive history of the legendary Flying Tigers. Every page
contains a new tidbit of information and rich, long-forgotten
detail." -- World War II magazine, November 2007
HarperCollins has
released Flying Tigers as an ebook, available for pre-order
now for Amazon's Kindle reader in the
United States
and also in Britain
. Official publication later this month or in September.
There's a good-hearted review of Flying
Tigers in the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, in
which Col. Gordon Keiser writes: "Having been a fan of the Flying Tigers since I saw the John Wayne
movie as a kid, I picked up this updated version of their
impressive combat history. One of the most interesting aspects of
Ford's well-researched book is its in-depth coverage of 1st
American Volunteer Group (AVG) personnel, an odd lot of rugged
individualists."
We all know the downside of the internet: it
sucks up time that would better be devoted to more productive work. But
ah, the upside! We meet people who otherwise would always be below
the horizon. Most often this takes the form of information, like this
from Robert Klemann about the disastrous raid on Lashio in June 1942,
when four of six B-25 bombers were lost:
'I was the pilot of one of the two surviving
B-25s. The supposition that three of the planes had run out of gas is
reasonable, but not accurate. The fact is that two of them ... struck
a mountain top while flying on instruments, and there was no possibility
of any survivors. The third one did run out of fuel and the crew bailed
out. We missed hitting that mountain by 15 or 20 feet. The trees and
bushes were just beyond our wingtip.'
Bob had another link with the Flying Tigers:
he was one of the bomber pilots who volunteered for the
2nd AVG,
which was scheduled to leave Burbank CA on December 10 en route
to Burma. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
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