Talk:Flying Tigers/Archive 1

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I added that the group were paid mercenaries, due to another wiki article stating: " The pilots earned roughly $600-700 basic pay per month, plus an extra $500 per confirmed Japanese aircraft that was shot down courtesy of Madame Chiang Kai-shek."

-intranetusa

Can't we just get rid of the Trivia section, which seems to be a magnet for -- well, trivia, most recently the false assertion that AVG veterans created the Hell's Angels motorcycle group. Why mention a Chinese police squad and not, say, the current Flying Tigers helicopter and Warthog squadrons, or the radio-controlled model club? If Panda Bears etc are worth mentioning, why not "English" the entry and put it in the body of the article? --Cubdriver 20:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Later: right! Another addition that made me cringe, so I deleted the section. It is obviously a magnet for bits of nonsense. If any of these items seriously belong in the article, then they should be placed at a logical place in the text, and there justified by their importance. --Cubdriver 18:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

ĒHere I create a section about 'Volunteer Army'. I hope the section to be to be complemented. Poo-T 18:29, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your English is shoddy and you don't know the first thing about protocol in regards to proving your claims. I removed it until you can give Wiki a valid link to the controversy.

I know I'm not so good at writing English. So I have asked to refine the text I wrote. Then I want ask you about a few points. #1 There was no discussion page before I wrote here. If you see 'Write something and Write discussion simultaneously' as a problem, you should remove all the text in this WikiPage. :P) #2 If you think the source of the text is poor, I can add some additional links about it. As I 've tried to keep the balance of the page, I didn't add so long text/many links. Do you really want many links limited to the text? #3 I'm not sure I can catch your meaning. If you think, free online link/source is needed as a reference, It's worth listening to. #4 Do you understand your doing 'Remove text without discussing, Remove text without signature, Remove text without logging in' is valid? IMHO, Your doing seems not so "WikiPedian style". Don't you think so? Poo-T 23:47, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

April 1942 Kienow, China Air Task Force Base.

A hour before darkness fell over eastern China, the silence was broken by a frantic cry from the Chinese officer on duty in the operations cave that a lone aircraft was approaching. Was it an enemy Japanese plane? The Japanese never sent out single aircraft but perhaps they might be trying a new tactic to catch the eight Warhawk P-40 fighter planes formerly known as the famed Flying Tigers on the ground.

Not taking chances, Flight Leader John Hampshire ordered 2 P-40s up into the air. The unknown aircraft was only 30 miles to the east and fast approaching.

10 miles from the Kienow airfield, the two pilots spotted the mystery plane flying low 200ft above the ground. It was a American made P-40 with American insignia! Where did it come from? The pilots noticed that it was very badly shot-up, the fuselage looking more like a sieve, and through the shattered windshield was the bloody face of the pilot, but the plane held steady, flying straight and true.

However, minutes later, the aircraft suddenly plunged downwards, hitting the ground with an explosion.

Who and what was that P-40 doing so far from the nearest US airbase? Where did it come from?

Apparently, so they learnt much later on that the pilot was one "Corn" Sherill based on the Philippine Island of Mindanao. After the fall of most of the Phillipines to the Japanese in the Spring of 1942, Corn Sheril and 11 mechanics decided to field one last mission against the invaders. Cannibalising parts from a few decrepit airplanes, they put together a single flight-worthy P-40 and fitted it with a few bombs and a large auxiliary fuel tank. The mission? An improbable bombing run at the heart of the Japanese empire, a naval base on the island of Formosa (Taiwan, then a Japanese Colony).

Corn Sherill flew the patched-up aircraft north to Formosa and 5 hours later, so unexpected was his attack that he was able to drop his bombs virtually unopposed, strafing and destroying a large number of grounded Japanese aircraft lined up in neat rows and bearing the rising sun insignia.

Leaving a wake of destruction, Corn Sherill turned westward, towards China and his one chance of survival, the Chinese nationalist airbase of Kienow. However, his plane was now riddled by shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire and low on fuel. Japanese Zeros, scrambled to intercept, poured yet more punishment into the P-40. Flying a desperate weave, a badly wounded Corn Sheril performed the best flying of his life, flying by the seat of his pants and finally escaped his pursuers in the clouds.

Low one fuel and forced to nurse a badly damaged plane without working instruments, he flew by dead reckoning alone. Somewhere between Formosa and Kienow, Corn Sheril died, but somehow his aircraft held true, perhaps from a braced stick against his knees. The plane continued on its course, flown by a dead man, directly towards the safety of the Allied airbase. That was where the two pilots from Kienow found the lone fighter, after a long and amazing flight through the heart of the Japanese empire.

From http://forum.china-defense.com/showthread.php?t=16205 -- Миборовский 03:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, interesting, but known to be bogus. See http://www.warbirdforum.com/phantom.htm Oldpilot 21:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

"Flying Tigers" of course was never more than a nickname for the unit known at the time as the First American Volunteer Group. That being the case, shouldn't the article be titled Flying Tigers (American Volunteer Group)? Are there other cases where Wiki articles show alternate titles in this manner? --Cubdriver 20:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone has now found it necessary to add that "Flying Tigers" also referred to successor units. All the more reason that this ought to be have American Volunteer Group in its title! --Cubdriver 00:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be "American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers)".

The AVG was certainly a U.S.-supported unit. Early on, it was largely run by Lauchlin Currie, a staffer in the White House, and its financing was handled by China Defense Supplies which was largely the creation of Roosevelt friend Tommy Corcoran. The money was provided by the U.S.; the planes were American; the pilots and ground crews were recruited mostly from the U.S. military.

Yet all those men were volunteers, and (though some of them now claim otherwise) they were released from U.S. service with no formal understanding that they would ever return--and many never did go back into the U.S. military. So I don't see what is wrong with the title, American Volunteer Group.

As for violating neutrality laws, the financing and organization of the AVG was very carefully done in a manner that would *not* violate the letter of the law. Tommy Corcoran in an unpublished memoir has told us that, at Roosevelt's request, he went to Capitol Hill and floated the plan to to see if they had any objection to it. They didn't, and the plan proceeded. I don't see any violation.

Note also that by the time the AVG was in Burma in the summer of 1941, the law had changed from "Cash and Carry" to "Lend Lease." Indeed, the planes released to China by the British were replaced by more formidable models of P-40 that were provided (effectively free) under Lend Lease. So events caught up with the AVG before it ever went into combat.

'in an unpublished memoir', 'Tommy Corcoran went to Capitol Hill ' 'Congressional leaders ' no objection' . Can it be a kind of source for Encyclopedia? And, I think, this process doesn't mean 'Official approval'. IMHO, about the violation is gray area, not "white" or "black". If such process can be easily permitted, Iran-Contra Affair would be "white", too. But I don't want to do endless debating about Flying tigers. So I propose to add sentences as follows. >The AVG was certainly a U.S.-supported unit. Early on, it was largely run by Lauchlin Currie, a staffer in the White House, and its financing was handled by China Defense Supplies which was largely the creation of Roosevelt friend Tommy Corcoran. The money was provided by the U.S. The planes were American. The pilots and ground crews were recruited mostly from the U.S. military. But direct military aid was prohibited under neutrality laws. So the financing and organization of the AVG was very carefully done by the president, in a manner that would not violate the letter of the law. -How do you think about the text, Cubdriver? Poo-T 06:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

While the blood chit illustrating this section appears to be reasonably accurate, it contains a copy of the Walt Disney "Flying Tiger" emblem that is 1) ananchronistic (no such emblem on the blood chit) and 2) flipped to show the Bengal tiger leaping to the right instead of the left. Could the image be replaced? For an actual AVG blood chit, see http://www.warbirdforum.com/bloodchi.htm showing the blood chit that belonged to AVG ground crew Jasper Harrington.

This is a photograph showing both the back piece and a chest or leaf piece, in a frame. The piece with the tigre is not part of the back piece. I am not very competant to judge of the authenticity of these, though. Rama 13:25, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Zhang Difei, a native Chinese speaker, translates the "blood chit" text as follows: "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"

Later: okay, I asked a friend to question some of the AVG vets on this matter, and they all agree the blood chit is bogus. Here's a statement by a gent whose avocation it is to appraise AVG memorabilia: "The chit on that site is a fake, as is of course, the patch. There is basically one type of chit used by the AVG. It may have had one tiny character variation by the series number. They are raw silk with a linen backing and silk screened with some variations in the colors probably caused by printing on different occasions and ink level.The earliest chits issued are in the three and four hundreds. The next batch issued with the one minor character variation started with #0001 which Chennault kept."

I will upload a jpeg of the Jasper Harrington blood chit when I can figure out the system for so doing! (Cubdriver)

Later: Okay, with the permission of R.E. Baldwin, I have uploaded a different blood chit, to which he holds copyright. (Cubdriver) As a result of the pilots being paid $500 gold per enemy aircraft shot down, the AVG had the most arduous process for recording a confirmed kill of any aerial combat group in history. For example,in the battle of Rangoon an unknown number of enemy aircraft were shot down which went down in the bay. These were not confirmed kills even though they were seen to go down. This is ignored in this article.

I personally don't see what would make the interviews of the Japanese pilots more accurate than the AVG claims. As far as "official" Japanese military records from this era, how many commanders are going to accuratly portray their losses when this will be to their detriment in their careers?--Jmb2fly (talk) 13:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Kill tallies from the time period were often inflated as a method of propaganda. While the official number of planes shot down by the Flying Tigers was relatively accurate, pilots at the time frequently inflated their kill totals. This was also a method for the pilots to earn more money. As stated in the article, unofficial kills ranged from 500-1000 while the "official" number was significantly lower.

You are conflating newspaper reports with pilot claims/credits. The AVG had 297 confirmed kills (the number varies by one or two depending on when and who filed the reports). The pilots weren't over-claiming for propaganda, nor were they over-claiming for money, since for a good part of the time they were in combat, they didn't know that the bonus money would be paid to them. They over-claimed for a variety of very good reasons, which have pertained to most aerial combats in most wars. To bring up propaganda and money misleads the reader. You might consider starting a new article on the subject of fighter pilot over-claiming, a very fertile field for speculation. Cubdriver

Cubdriver is quite correct in asserting that pilots due tend to exaggerate. The figure of "1,000 kills" comes from an infamous booklet issued at an AVG reunion. One wonders what the writers were smoking at the time. The actual figure is indeed around 300, though that depends whether or not you only count air-to-air victories or you include parked aircraft destroyed by strafing.Archangel

AVG Air and Ground Claims

The official list of AVG victory credits was published in 1996 by researcher Dr. Frank Olynyk (now cited in the bibliography.) The actual total was 229 air and 69 ground: a total of 298. Yes, that's well beyond the 115 determined by Ford but it's within bounds for the normal exaggeration in aerial combat, especially when some good money was at stake. ($500 in 1942 = over $6000 today.)

I changed the original statement that Boyington "created" the Black Sheep: he merely assumed command of a reconstituted squadron that had existed before. The biography alluded to here was written by Bruce Gamble, who also compiled a fine squadron history.

I added a reference in the article to Ford's book stating 110-120 planes. That was before I read this section and the reference to Olynyk. I also noticed Ford's book listed as published in 2007, whereas mine if copyrighted 1991 with a slightly different title. I will remove the text and reference. However, it might be a good idea to state that different researchers/authors list significantly different "victories." Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 15:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

My father balked when I told him the Chinese got thumbs up from the pilots. It means "number one" in Chinese, and I've seen photos and film of Chinese making this gesture. Can anybody verify that the pilots got this from the pilots, rather than just being a theory? He was a college student there when these guys were flying the skies over China.--Wiarthurhu 23:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

US Airmen over the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, precursor of CIA's "Air America".

Takima 14:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I flew with the Chinese Air Force out of a base in Yang Jia Shan, a village 25 km from Han Zhong. (Han Zhong is 145 km SW of Xian).

Residents of the village tell me that they watched American pilots fight the Japanese during WWII. I heard from a number of local people that Americans flew from that base.

What did this base do? Were Flying Tigers stationed there?

What air bases did the Flying Tigers use?

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 17:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The Flying Tigers were officially the First American Volunteer Group, which we would now render 1st American Volunteer Group. The 2nd AVG was actually organized and ready to go, with men at sea and others ready to fly the Pacific on December 10, 1941. A 3rd AVG would have been recruited in January 1942. These followup groups deserve mention but do not belong in a discussion of the Flying Tigers. So I like the organization whereby American Volunteer Group is a landing page of its own, referring the reader to Flying Tigers. That's the present setup. To combine them would require a major rewrite. Oldpilot 21:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

So ... can we now remove the flag at the top of the article? Whenever I see these flags, I become suspicious of the article!

There being no objection, I removed the flag. Oldpilot 17:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

There are several cites to the Centennial of Flight website, which strikes me as being of dubious worth. For example we read: The salary lured some--$500 a month plus $400 per confirmed kill bonus--nearly double the average military pilot salary. Some joined to gain combat flying experience, others for the adventure. During the summer of 1941, 300 men posing as tourists and carrying passports that identified them as teachers boarded boats for Asia. Here in just three sentences we have three errors: the minimum salary for pilots was $600, the victory bonus was $500, and I can't think of a single AVG who went out as a teacher, though perhaps one or two did. Certainly they didn't all do so, as the website suggests. Daniel Ford 20:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.