Claire Lee Chennault

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Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault (September 6, 1893 – July 27, 1958), was a United States aviator famous for commanding the "Flying Tigers" during World War II.

Born in Commerce, Texas to John Stonewall Jackson Chennault and Jesse Lee,[1] he was raised in Waterproof, Louisiana. He attended Louisiana State University between 1909 and 1910 and received ROTC training (Claire). Chennault learned to fly in the Army during World War I and became Chief of Pursuit Training for the US Army Air Corps in the 1930s. Poor health and disputes with superiors led Chennault to retire from the service in 1937. He then joined a small group of American civilians training Chinese airmen and served as 'air adviser' to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong Mei-ling, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). During this time Chennault participated in planning operations and observed the Chinese Air Force in combat from a Curtiss Mohawk (P-36 Hawk).

Chennault's American Volunteer Group (AVG) — better known as the "Flying Tigers" — began training in August 1941 and fought the Japanese for six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Chennault's three squadrons of American volunteer pilots used his tactics of "defensive pursuit" to guard the Burma Road, Rangoon, and other strategic locations in Southeast Asia and western China against Japanese forces, as China had few, if any, modern planes.

Dr Seuss thanked Chennault by inducting him into the Society of Red Tape Cutters on August 30th, 1942

The Flying Tigers were formally incorporated into the United States Army Air Forces in 1942. Earlier, Chennault had rejoined the Army with the rank of colonel; he was promoted to brigadier and then major general, commanding the Fourteenth Air Force. Throughout the course of the war he was engaged with a bitter dispute with the American ground commander, General Joseph Stilwell. Chennault believed that the Fourteenth Air Force, operating out of bases in China, could bring about the downfall of Japan with air power alone; in contrast, Stilwell believed that the key to victory was the training of Chinese troops and their employment in aggressive ground operations in China. Because supply to CBI was very limited — all the ground routes to China had been closed by the Japanese, leaving only the tenuous Hump air route from India over the Himalayas — the fight for tonnage amongst the two generals was rancorous. As Chennault was a long-time friend of Chiang Kai-shek and had the ear of Franklin Roosevelt he usually came out ahead. Chennault retired in 1945, shortly before the Allied victory in the Pacific. Later in the war, when the air-bases established by Chennault were entirely overrun and all equipment lost -- thus proving Stilwell correct in his opposition -- Chiang and Chennault managed to persuade Washington that the fault lay with Stilwell, had him relieved of command, and so freed up Chennault and Chiang to largely orchestrate the execution of the remainder of the war.

Chennault, who unlike Joseph Stilwell had a high opinion of Chiang Kai-shek, advocated international support for Asian anti-communist movements. Returning to China postwar, he purchased several surplus military aircraft and created Civil Air Transport (later Air America). These aircraft facilitated the Kuomintang occupation of Northern Burma throughout the mid- and late-1950's and provided wide support for the Thai police force (which at the time openly engaged in heroin and opium trafficking); Chiang Kai Shek and Mr. Chennault considered the stress which this created for the fledgling Burmese democracy justified because, in their opinion, the fight to restore the Chiang's to Chinese rule was the only means to protect the world from Chinese Communists. As a direct consequence of this occupation and the violence it spawned, Myanmar's democracy was soon toppled by a military coup, thus catapulting the new nation into the current morass of coup and counter-coup that continues to this day.

Later, many of the founders and leaders of Civil Air Transport were to become involved directly in Southeast Asian politics, policing, and drug cartels, ultimately morphing into Air America, the CIA air transport company which served throughout the Korean War, the French First Indochina War, and the Vietnam War.

Chennault was ultimately promoted to lieutenant general, only one day before his death. Chennault died in 1958, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is commemorated by a statue in the ROC capital of Taipei, as well as by monuments on the grounds of the Louisiana state capitol at Baton Rouge, and at Chennault Air Force Base – now the commercial Chennault International Airport after the military base was closed in 1963 – in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Chennault is still recognized as a major historical contributor to Chinese history within China. His Chinese name is Chen-na-de (陳纳德).

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His first wife, Nell Thompson, is an American born Britain Lady. By the time he was in China, Chennault and Nell had divorced. While in China, Chennault married young Chinese woman Chen Xiangmei, who was a reporter for the Central News Agency. Anna Chennault, as his wife became known, went on to become one of Taiwan's chief lobbyists in Washington.

1 See also
2 Further reading
3 External links
4 Works Cited

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

Martha Byrd - Chennault: Giving Wings to the Tiger ISBN 0-8173-0322-7
Claire Chennault - Way of a Fighter (Putnam's, 1949)
Daniel Ford - Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group ISBN 1-56098-541-0
Robert Lee Scott Jr - Flying Tiger: Chennault of China ISBN 0-8371-6774-4