Additions and corrections
The historian's work is never done: new stuff keeps cropping up! Here I'll record items that came in after the manuscript was completed, that didn't make the final cut, or that I got wrong in the published book.On the hot-button subject of overclaiming
Pages x-xi: Christopher Shores, the dean of British aviation historians, was similarly attacked for his account of the Burma campaign, as published in Bloody Shambles. Chris wrote a dignified reply for the 12 O'Clock High message board, which you can read here. (Hat tip: Jack Cook)That Russian bomber
Page 18 etc. The design bureau of the Soviet-built bomber is properly spelled Tupolev. (Hat tip: Ivan Gatchik)Joe Y. Chennault
When Chennault tried to recruit his half-brother for the AVG staff in the winter of 1940-1941, Joe Y. may have been a student at George Washington University law school. (The two men did play a round or two of golf in Washington.) Joe Y. was about the age of Chennault's own children, and he outlived most of the Flying Tigers, dying in August 2007. (Hat tip: Harry Mangleburg)Maax Hammer
Page 75: Hammer's unusual first name was a family tradition: his father was Maax Curtis Hammer Sr., as I'm told by a relative. "The spelling is indeed unusual for American spelling, but the family came from Germany where variations were not uncommon." (Hat tip: Tripp Alyn)Japanese airfields in Thailand
Pages 111, 143, 150: The airfields at Mae Sot, Tak/Raheng, Chiang Mai, and elsewhere in northern Thailand were built in the 1930s by the Aerial Transport Company, which hoped to link Bangkok and Rangoon. The system never got that far, but 191 flights were made between the Thai airports in the year ending March 1940. There's a map here. (Hat tip: Hak Hakanson and the book Aerial Nationalism: A History of Aviation in Thailand, by Edward Young)The Christmas Order of Battle
Pages 112-134: Here's the Rangoon Order of Battle for December 23 and 25. And here's a map of JAAF deployments in Thailand on December 23, posted on the Annals of the Flying Tigers.That Korean prisoner
Page 134: The sergeant-pilot identified as Ri Kontetu was evidently the same individual as Aoki Akira, recorded as shot down the same day. Like many Koreans in Japanese service, he had adopted a Japanese name. He spent the rest of the war in a British prison camp in India. Postwar, he reverted to his Korean name, by this time Englished as Rhee Geun-seok, and in 1949 he became the first commander of the Republic of Korea's air force academy. In 1950, following North Korea's invasion of the south, Colonel Rhee took command of a shipment of North American F-51 Mustang fighters, only to be killed a few days later while strafing a tank column south of Seoul. (Hat tip: Joe Brennan)South Burma Order of Battle
Page 193: Here's the South Burma Order of Battle for February 3 and map of JAAF deployments for mid-February.Rumors of 'bought' victories
Pages 213-15: Similar reports have appeared elsewhere. In Tiger for Breakfast (Dutton 1966), Michel Peissel writes of the AVG: "One of their great sports was swapping planes shot down with the pilots of the RAF and the Tenth Air Force, who could thus benefit by a percentage of the bonuses given the AVG men." Alas for legend, no victory credited to an AVG pilot could ever have been acquired from the 10th Air Force. Still, the casual mention shows that the rumor was current in India at the time.Then there's "War as Theater of the Absurd," an essay by John Fischer in Harper's Magazine (March 1970). Fischer panned historians who "solemnly record the miraculous success of the Flying Tigers" for destroying nearly 300 Japanese planes while RAF squadrons barely broke even. "The explanation is a credit to the free-enterprise system," he wrote. "The Chinese government, which had hired the Flying Tigers, paid them a bonus of $500 for every Japanese plane shot down. But, the RAF pilots merely got their regular pay.... Inevitably the allied flyers made a deal. Suppose a squadron of Tigers and an RAF squadron jointly tackled a flight of Japanese bombers and shot down, say, ten of them. When they were debriefed back at their airstrips, the British might claim one victory, while the Americans would claim the other nine--and collect bonuses totaling $4,500.00. Next morning, of course, they would split the loot with their British friends." Fischer gave no source, though supposedly he served for a time on Stilwell's staff.
In fact, the RAF and the AVG put in own separate claims, and they didn't "split the loot" next morning because there was no loot to be had. The bonus system wasn't confirmed until March, and even then the payoffs were handled by CAMCO in New York, with the money paid into the flier's bank account. (Hat tip: Brad Smith)
P-40B kit