The AVG was largely the creation of Claire Chennault, a retired U.S. Army Air Corps captain who had become military aviation advisor to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in the Sino-Japanese War. (On occasion Chennault may have piloted a plane himself, though stories that he was a combat ace are probably apocryphal.) Due to poor fighter aircraft supplied by Russia, results were not impressive, and when Russian air units were withdrawn from China in 1940, Chiang asked for American squadrons to replace them as well as permission to recruit US pilots to fly them. Since the US was not at war, this could not happen openly, but it received favorable assistance and approval from President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself.
The resultant clandestine operation was organized in large part by Lauchlin Currie, a young economist in the White House, and by Roosevelt intimate Thomas G. Corcoran. (Currie's assistant was John King Fairbank, who later became America's preeminent Asian scholar.) The AVG financing was handled by China Defense Supplies, which was primarily Tommy Corcoran's creation, with funding provided by the U.S. government; purchases were then made by the Chinese under the "Cash and Carry" provision of the Neutrality Act of 1939.
A “blood chit” issued to the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers) pilots. The Chinese characters read: “This foreign person has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue, protect, and provide him medical care.” (R.E. Baldwin Collection)
[edit] AVG Recruiting
Chennault spent the winter of 1940-1941 in Washington, helping to negotiate the purchase of 100 Curtiss P-40 fighters. He also supervised the recruiting of 100 pilots — 40 from the Army Air Corps and 60 from the Navy and Marine Corps — and about 200 ground crewmen. (Ten more army flight instructors were hired as check pilots for Chinese cadets, and a few of these would ultimately join the AVG’s combat squadrons.)
Although sometimes referred to as a mercenary unit, the AVG is unique in that it had government funding and approval to recruit from active duty units in the United States. The pilots were either currently serving in American armed services or reserve officers; contrary to legend, none were recruited from the ranks of civilian transport pilots or barnstormers. Most histories of the Flying Tigers say that on April 15, 1941 President Roosevelt signed a secret executive order authorising Army Reservists on active duty to resign from the Army Air Corps in order to sign up for the AVG,[1] however Flying Tigers historian Daniel Ford could not find evidence that such an order was ever published.[2] Ford states that the State Department in fact blocked the issuing of a passport to a pilot who had a history of volunteering for such service,[3] something that would go against the spirit of such an order.
The pilots who volunteered were discharged from the American armed services, to fly and fight as mercenaries for the Republic of China Air Force.[4] They were officially employees of a private military contractor, the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, which employed them for "training and instruction," and which paid them $600 a month for pilot officer (USAAF monthly pay in 1942, including flight and overseas pay, was $247), $675 a month for flight leader (such as Gregory “Pappy” Boyington) (USAAF $347), and $750 for Squadron leader (USAAF $445), though no pilot was recruited at this level.[5] They were orally promised an additional $500 for each enemy aircraft shot down, a promise that was later confirmed by Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who also extended it to aircraft destroyed on the ground, but which obviously the U.S. services did not extend to their pilots.
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