Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942 - Softcover

Ford, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0692734732 ISBN 13: 9780692734735

Publisher: Warbird Books, 2016

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 twice rewritten his original text, drawing on the most recent U.S., British, and Japanese scholarship, along with new information about AVG pilots and crewmen, their Royal Air Force colleagues, and their Japanese opponents.

"Admirable," wrote Chennault biographer Martha Byrd of Ford's original text. "A readable book based on sound sources. Expect some surprises." Flying Tigers won the Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence in the year of its first publication.

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: Warbird Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0692734732
• ISBN 13: 9780692734735
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 335