A Brief History
On December 20, 1941, the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known by its nickname, the Flying Tigers, engaged in its first round of air-to-air combat when its fighters encountered Japanese “Sally” bombers. Just in case you do not know, the AVG was a group of American flyers under the command of Claire Chennault that flew for China against the Japanese.
Digging Deeper
As you can tell by the date above, by the time the AVG got into combat, the U.S. was already at war with Japan, which kind of defeated the purpose of using “volunteers” from supposedly uninvolved countries. A similar situation occurred when Chinese “volunteers” fought against the U.S. in Korea. Another thing about these volunteers is that they were not necessarily patriots or even altruistic; they were merely mercenaries who were in it for the money. Pilots were to receive $500 for each Japanese plane shot down, a princely sum for that time.
Another fact that is commonly misportrayed in many sources and in war lore, is that the Tigers were flying obsolete U.S. fighters against cutting edge Japanese planes and were thus at a great disadvantage. In reality, the P-40 Tomahawk and Kittyhawk fighters flown by the AVG were brand new and had been shipped to China directly from the factory.
The P-40 was faster, better armed, better armored and could even dive faster than the Japanese fighters it faced. While the A6M Zero was a worthy opponent, the other Japanese fighters encountered by the AVG were lesser planes. The Ki-27 Nate, for example, only had a top speed 275 mph and was only armed with 2 x .30 caliber machine guns. Another Japanese plane, the Ki-43 Oscar with its 329 mph speed and 2 x .50 caliber machine guns was not much better. The P-40, on the other hand, could tool along at over 360 mph and had 6 x .50 caliber machine guns. All the Japanese planes were basically unarmored to make them lightweight, and although maneuverable, they could not take the same amount of combat punishment that the P-40 could. At lower altitudes and higher speeds, the P-40 could actually out turn a Zero! Another major advantage of the P-40 was that it had self-sealing fuel tanks, while the Japanese planes did not, which made them highly combustible. The main drawback to the P-40 was its poor high altitude performance, a factor not often in play in the China theater.
Another misconception is that the AVG was a tiny force of just fighter planes that had teeth and eyes painted on the noses. The AVG actually consisted of 200 fighter planes and 66 light bombers. Oh, and about the nose art, the “tiger” in “Flying Tigers” referred to the tiger shark, a fish the Japanese were believed to greatly fear. This real association, however, soon became misconstrued when Walt Disney Studios created of a cartoon logo for the AVG, using the feline type of tiger.
The Flying Tigers were disbanded in July of 1942, with the Chinese government being behind on payments to the pilots and ground crews. It eventually paid up however. Not all of the pilots were eager to rejoin the U.S. military, with some being threatened that they would be drafted into the infantry and handed a rifle if they did not fly. Many were bitter about that coercion.
You might be familiar with Gregory “Pappy” Boyington of the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep fame. He was a highly decorated U.S. Marine Corps fighter ace who had flown F4U Corsairs against the Japanese in World War II. What you might not know is that he was one of the original Flying Tigers. With 28 air-to-air kills, he was also the first American World War II ace to tie and beat Eddie Rickenbacker’s World War I record of 26 air-to-air kills. He was also a Medal of Honor recipient and served time as a prisoner of war (POW) of the Japanese.
Another interesting fact you might not know is that there were 2 more editions of the AVG, called the 2nd AVG and the 3rd AVG. The second was formed in late 1941 and consisted of light bombers, and the third never actually came into being. Yet another bit of Flying Tigers trivia, is that John Wayne starred in the 1942 film, Flying Tigers, in his first war movie (other than cowboy films). Typical of the World War II films, this movie was clearly designed as a patriotic propaganda type film. Another wartime movie about the Flying Tigers was 1945’s God is My Co-Pilot, based on the book by pilot Colonel Robert Scott.
One thing that history did get right about the AVG was that the men in the air and on the ground performed heroically against greater numbers of enemy airplanes. These include the Chinese who supported the AVG with endless hard labor as they built and repaired airstrips, manned observation posts since radar was not available and did whatever else was needed to keep the Americans happy and able to fight. It would also be appropriate to point out the contribution of the nurses who volunteered to assist the AVG in China, a potentially deadly assignment and certainly one under harsh conditions.
One last H&H Fact: Not all the tiger shark paint jobs on the fighters’ noses were alike. The different artists had their own unique styles.
AVG, we salute you!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Ford, Daniel. Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942. Warbird Books, 2016.
Kleiner, Sam. The Flying Tigers: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan. Penguin Books, 2018.
Scott, Robert. God Is My Copilot. Ballantine Books, 1964.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by a US government employee of Flying Tigers personnel, is a work of a U.S. Air Force Airman or employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image or file is in the public domain in the United States.
You can also watch a video version of this article on YouTube:
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="7116 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=7116">3 Comments
I am not familiar with any of this, and I find it to be very interesting. I found that The Flying Tigers were disbanded in July of 1942, with the Chinese government being behind on payments to the pilots and ground crews was a very fascinating fact.
Having just done a 5000 word research paper on the topic, I’d like to correct a number of statements in this article.
The men were in fact volunteers initially. Chennault was in China since the Marco Polo bridge incident and since that event tried to get a volunteer fighting force established in China since the Chinese Air Force was being annihilated. He was eventually able to get *100 fighter planes* (not 200) and 100 volunteer pilots (along with ground crew). By the time the volunteers just about finished training, Pearl Harbor came to light.
The is a lot of speculation as to were the Flying Tiger’s name comes from, so one can’t assert one story as the fact. One thing you can find, is that Chennault himself stated that his men noticed the shark-teeth art on a rather successful British squadron using P-40’s. A few decided to experiment with it and before long they started a trend that would be synonymous with the “Flying Tigers.”
As for the name itself, I doubt that the AVG knew enough about Japanese culture to deliberately name their squadron after fearsome tiger sharks, though it’s possible. Many sources say that it was in fact Chinese newspapers that screamed “Fei-Hu” after the Tigers scored their first victory at Kunming. The term, which literally meant “Flying Tiger”, was alluding to the Chinese idiom “to give wings to a tiger,” meaning to bestow supernatural powers to an already ferocious beast or empower something already particularly strong. Basically: “Legendary-ly Epic.” The name translated well, taking a twofold meaning. I believe this is the best and most backed up theory to their origins. (You can read about it in the book written by Chennault’s wife: Chennault and the Flying Tigers)
Yes, the fighters the Tiger’s received were brand-new. Your statistic about firepower is correct. However, only the P-40 E models had x6 50 calliber machine guns. All of the original aircraft the Tigers got were P-40B’s. They had x2 30-caliber guns and only x2 50 caliber guns. They were also considerably slower with weaker engines than the E models, which the Tigers did not receive until much later (during the “2nd Flying Tigers,” or the “China Air Task Force”). They only received 20.
I would agree that the armor, good firepower, and powerful engines would make these planes superior to the Japanese.The advantage the Tigers had, although clear, was not that drastic. They were often outnumber 10:1 and were called to battle constantly, thus the planes were overused to the point of abuse. Fuel and supply shortages were another major problem. (Sometimes they had to sit a battle out) Once the war in China went into full swing, the AVG had at best never more than about 20 aircraft flight-worthy. Mechanics often had to skip engine checks because there was an immediate bomber raid; pilots often competed with one another to reach a flyable aircraft. Damaged planes were cannibalized…there were rarely enough spare parts.
At low altitudes, with medium to low speeds however, it was almost suicide to fight any Japanese plane. The P-40 was able to out-turn Japanese aircraft *at high speed*, but the tigers always tried to avoid dog-fighting. They preferred to dive, shoot, then zoom away with the excess speed. They rarely engaged Zeros, which as stated in your article.
I do appreciate you article though, I just had to point a few things out.
Your comments are an excellent addition to the article. Thanks! (The brevity of our articles precludes in depth details and sometimes generalizations are needed. We do appreciate reader added info.)