Flying Tigers - Softcover

Ford, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061246557 ISBN 13: 9780061246555

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2007

Synopsis

During World War II, in the skies over Rangoon, Burma, a handful of American pilots met and bloodied the Imperial Wild Eagles of Japan and in turn won immortality as the Flying Tigers. One of America's most famous combat forces, the Tigers were recruited to defend beleaguered China for $600 a month and a bounty of $500 for each Japanese plane they shot down--fantastic money in an era when a Manhattan hotel room cost three dollars a night. To bring his prize-winning history of the American Volunteer Group up to date, Daniel Ford has completely rewritten his 1991 text, drawing on the most recent U.S., British, and Japanese scholarship. New material from AVG veterans--including Erik Shilling and Tex Hill--help fill out the story, along with newfound recollections from Japanese and New Zealand airmen. Ford also takes up the rumors that Royal Air Force pilots sold combat victories to the Flying Tigers in order to share in the bounties paid by the Chinese government. Admirable, wrote Chennault biographer Martha Byrd of Ford's original text. A readable book based on sound sources. Expect some surprises. Even more could that be said of this new and more complete edition.

About this title

Review:

"Meticulously researched, carefully documented." -- Washington Times

"War history as it should be written." -- The Hook

"A first-rate history." -- Boston Globe

A first-rate history. --Boston Globe

Admirable--a readable book based on sound sources. Expect a few surprises. --Air Power Historian

Meticulously researched, carefully documented. --Washington Times

A major contribution to the history of the air war in the Pacific. --Don Lopez, US Army 23rd Fighter Group Flying Tigers

Totally engrossing--just like reliving those days fifty years ago. --Robert Neale, AVG 1st Squadron

War history as it should be written. --The Hook

Without question, the most readable and complete account of the AVG yet written. --Thomas Norton in Air & Space / Smithsonian

From the Author:

Some second thoughts about "Flying Tigers"
The Tigers were the heroes of my boyhood, during World War II, and after five years of researching and writing their history, I concluded with the words: "All honor to them."

Imagine my surprise when the survivors (with a few good-hearted exceptions) went ballistic when they read the book. The problem, of course, was that only 110-120 of their 296 "confirmed" victories could be validated in Japanese accounts of these same combats. Incredibly, of 60-odd authors who've written about the American Volunteer Group, not one had ever bothered to ask that most fundamental question: how many planes did the Japanese actually lose to the AVG, in the air and on the ground?

I could write a better history of the AVG today. (Amazingly, new information does keep cropping up, nearly 60 years after the fact.) But I'm so gun shy about the veterans' reaction that I would probably omit some references to the courage of the Japanese airmen, and also skip over some of the AVG's less glorious moments. And what kind of a history would that have been?

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0061246557
• ISBN 13: 9780061246555
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384