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.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Military career 2.1 Flying Tigers 2.2 China-Burma-India Theater 3 Postwar 4 Death and legacy 5 See also 6 Notes 7 Further reading 8 External links 9 Works Cited

[edit] Early life

Born in Commerce, Texas, to John Stonewall Jackson Chennault and Jesse Lee,[1] he was raised in the town of Waterproof in Tensas Parish, Louisiana north of Ferriday in Concordia Parish. A 1900 US Census record from Franklin Parish, LA, Ward 2 identifies that a C L Chennault was age 6 in 1900 (thus born in Texas in September as indicated on the record). He was recorded as the son of J S and J L Chennault, with a younger brother age 3 (born in Louisiana) (1900 US Federal Census).

Chennault's age has not been without controversy. He began misrepresenting his birth date as being in September 1890 perhaps as early as mid-1909. The possibility is, being only 15 at the time he says that he applied to West Point, he made himself thereafter appear older (or old enough) for the application.

[edit] Military career

Chennault attended Louisiana State University between 1909 and 1910 and received ROTC training (Claire). He 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 (KMT) 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 (P-36 Mohawk). In this period, he would form the International Squadron.]].^[1]

[edit] Flying Tigers

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.^[2] Chennault's three squadrons used P-40s & 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.

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.

[edit] China-Burma-India Theater

Throughout the course of the war Chennault was engaged in a bitter dispute with the American ground commander, General Joseph Stilwell. Chennault asserted 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 insisted the key to victory was the coupling of that air-power with well-trained Chinese troops in solid, take-and-hold ground operations. Chiang Kai-shek favored Chennault's plans, most likely because they allowed him to continue to hoard materiel and money. As the war progressed, Chennault's bases were all but wiped from the map by the steady expansion of Japanese ground power.

Because supply to the China-Burma-India Theater 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 between 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. Later in the war, the air-bases established by Chennault were entirely overrun and all equipment lost. Chiang and Chennault managed to persuade Washington the fault lay with Stilwell, had him relieved of command, and so freed Chennault and Chiang to largely orchestrate the execution of the remainder of the war. Chennault retired in 1945, shortly before the Allied victory in the Pacific.

[edit] Postwar

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).^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.

[edit] Death and legacy

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. An antique P-40 aircraft, nicknamed "Joy", is on display at the riverside war memorial in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, close by the Chennault monument.

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

His first wife, Nell Thompson, was an American of British extraction. By the time he was in China, Chennault and Nell were divorced. While in China, Chennault married a 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.

[edit] See also

• Flying Tigers
• Republic of China Air Force
• Second Sino-Japanese War
• History of the Republic of China
• Military of the Republic of China
• Kuomintang
• Chiang Kai-shek
• Madame Chiang Kai-shek

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Caidin, Ragged, Rugged Warriors.
2. ^ Caidin, ibid., dates the departure of the first AVG pilots 10 Dec 1941.

[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
• Martin Caidin - The Ragged, Rugged Warriors Ballantine, 1978.
• Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War, London: John Murray, 2004 ISBN 0-7195-6576-6

[edit] External links

• http://www.warbirdforum.com/ch2.htm
• http://www.warbirdforum.com/clc.htm
• http://www.warbirdforum.com/ch24.htm
• http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/prewwii/clc.htm
• http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/clchenna.htm

[edit] Works Cited

"Claire Lee Chennault." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 6: 1956-1960. 1980. Biography Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 22 Sep. 2006.

"1900 United States Federal Census, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, Ward 2." Ancestry.com 20 Jan. 2007 <www.ancestrylibrary.com>.

Martin Caidin - The Ragged, Rugged Warriros Ballantine, 1978.