Claire Lee Chennault
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| Claire Lee Chennault | |
|---|---|
| 6 September 1893 – 27 July 1958 | |
 Claire Lee Chennault |
|
| Place of birth | Commerce, Texas |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Service/branch | United States Army Air Corps |
| Years of service | 1909 - 1945 |
| Rank | Lieutenant General |
| Commands held | 1st American Volunteer Group, Flying Tigers |
| Battles/wars | World War I Sino-Japanese War World War II |
| Awards | Army Distinguished Service Medal (2) Distinguished Flying Cross (2) |
Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault (6 September 1893 – 27 July 1958), was a United States military aviator who commanded the "Flying Tigers" during World War II. His family name is pronounced shen-awlt.
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[edit] Early life
Born in Commerce, Texas, to John Stonewall Jackson Chennault and Jessie (Lee) Chennault,[1] he was raised in the town of Waterproof in Tensas Parish, Louisiana. 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. He was too young to attend college after he graduated from high school, so his father added three years to his age.[2] The 1900 US Census record from Franklin Parish, LA, Ward 2 states that C L Chennault was age six in 1900, with a younger brother age three (born in Louisiana) (1900 US Federal Census).
[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 from the US Army Air Corps in the 1930s. Poor health and disputes with superiors led Chennault to resign 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). Chennault participated in planning operations and observed the Chinese Air Force in combat from a Curtiss Hawk 75). In this period, he would organize the International Squadron.[3]
[edit] Flying Tigers
Chennault's 1st 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 used P-40s and his tactics of "defensive pursuit" to guard the Burma Road, Rangoon and other strategic locations in Southeast Asia and western China against Japanese forces. Chennault made a great contribution by training the first-generation Chinese fighter pilots.
The Flying Tigers were formally incorporated into the United States Army Air Forces in 1942. Prior to that, Chennault had rejoined the Army with the rank of colonel. He was later promoted to brigadier and then major general, commanding the Fourteenth Air Force.
[edit] China-Burma-India theater
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Throughout 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 hoard materiel and money. As the war progressed, Chennault's bases were all but wiped off the map by the steady expansion of Japanese ground power. Making a mockery of Chennault's strategic analysis, as he was often told by General Stillwell that you can't hold airfields if you don't have the ground forces to protect them.
As supply to the China-Burma-India Theater was very limited — all 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. Chennault was a longtime friend of Chiang Kai-shek and had the ear of Franklin Roosevelt, so he usually came out ahead. Eventually, 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 and had him relieved of command. This freed Chennault and Chiang to largely orchestrate the conduct of the remainder of the war. Chennault retired from the Army in mid-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, 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 1950s and provided support for the Thai police force.
Chiang and Chennault considered the stress this created for the fledgling Burmese democracy was justified as in their opinion the fight to restore the Chiangs to Chinese rule was the only way to protect the world from Chinese Communism. As a consequence of the violence it spawned, Burma's democracy was soon toppled by a military coup.
Later, many of the founders and leaders of Civil Air Transport would become involved in Southeast Asian politics, policing and drug cartels, ultimately morphing into Air America, the CIA's air transport company that served throughout the Korean War, the First Indochina War, and the Vietnam War.
Chennault advocated changes in the way foreign aid was distributed and encouraged the U.S. Congress to focus on individuals. This viewpoint may have reflected his experiences during the Chinese Civil War, where the Kuomintang (recipients of huge sums of poorly distributed American aid) were defeated by Chinese Communist forces. Shortly before his death, Chennault was asked to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the Congress. When a committee member asked him who won the Korean War, his response was blunt: "The Communists."
[edit] Death and legacy
Chennault was ultimately promoted to lieutenant general, one day before his death. He died of lung cancer in 1958 after the removal of most of one lung the previous year. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Chennault 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 the former Chennault Air Force Base, now the commercial Chennault International Airport in Lake Charles, Louisiana. An antique P-40 aircraft, nicknamed "Joy", is on display at the riverside war memorial in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, painted in the colors of the Flying Tigers.
Chennault is recognized as a major war hero in China. His Chinese name is Chen-na-de (陳纳德). In 2005, the "Flying Tigers Memorial" was built in Huaihua, Hunan Province, on one of the old airstrips used by the Flying Tigers in the 1940s. Chennault's first wife, Nell Thompson, was an American of British ancestry. By the time he was serving in China, they had divorced. Chennault then married Chen Xiangmei, a young reporter for the Central News Agency. Anna Chennault, as his wife was known, became one of Taiwan's chief lobbyists in Washington.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
- ^ rootsweb.com Rootsweb
- ^ Hessen 1983, p. ix.
- ^ Caidin 1978. It is possible his command of this formation as well as the AVG leads to the mistaken belief AVG was in action before Pearl Harbor.
[edit] Bibliography
- Byrd, Martha. Chennault: Giving Wings to the Tiger. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University Alabama Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8173-0322-7.
- Caidin, Martin. The Ragged, Rugged Warriors. New York: Ballantine, 1978. ISBN 0-345-28302-3.
- Chennault, Claire. Way of a Fighter. New York: Putnam's, 1949.
- "Claire Lee Chennault." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 6: 1956-1960, Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 1980.
- Ford, Daniel. Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942. Washington, DC: HarperCollins|Smithsonian Books, 2007. ISBN 0-06124-655-7.
- Hessen, Robert, ed. General Claire Lee Chennault: A Guide to His Papers in the Hoover Institution Archives. Palo Alto, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1983. ISBN 0-8179-2652-6.
- Latimer, Jon. Burma: The Forgotten War. London: John Murray, 2004. ISBN 0-7195-6576-6.
- "1900 United States Federal Census, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, Ward 2." Ancestry.com 20 January 2007.
- Scott, Robert Lee Jr. Flying Tiger: Chennault of China. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1973. ISBN 0-8371-6774-4.
[edit] External links
- Flying Tigers Memorial in China, see http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2005-08/10/content_3334777.htm
- http://www.warbirdforum.com/clc.htm Short biography of Chennault
- http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/prewwii/clc.htm
- http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/clchenna.htm
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,790624-1,00.html
