MISSIONS THAT CHANGED THE WAR: The Flying Tigers FULL DOCUMENTARY Plus THE LEGACY Episode (4/4). Narrated by Gary Sinise.
The American volunteer flyers who fought for China against the Japanese invasion were known as the ‘Flying Tigers.’ They saw their first combat on December 20th, 1941. They had originally thought this would be earlier, but various delays meant that it happened a few days after the US and Japan were officially at war.
In China’s most desperate hour, Chiang Kai-Shek turns to the United States for help. The Japanese are bombing Chinese population centers mercilessly. China’s decimated air force is powerless to stop them. Chiang dispatches his American consultant - former U.S. Army Air Corps officer Claire L. Chennault - to obtain the airplanes and pilots needed to defend China. Tex Hill resigns his Navy Commission and volunteers.
a small group of American aviators fought in their first battle in World War II.
Their mission was unusual: They were mercenaries hired by China to fight against Japan.
They were called the American Volunteer Group and later became known as the Flying Tigers. Though only in combat for less than seven months, the group became famous at the time for its ability to inflict outsize damage on Japan's better-equipped and larger aircraft fleet.
Their victories came when Japan seemed unstoppable. The AVG was a bright spot in history when everything was bleak and black, and they have received a lot of recognition for that.
In the West, 1939 is considered the start of World War II. But in Asia, China and Japan had been at war since 1937.

China was already fighting its own civil war between the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and Communist forces. The two sides came to a truce to fight against the Japanese. China, however, had little air power to fend off Japanese bombings.
Enter Claire Lee Chennault, a U.S. Army aviator, instructor and tactician, once described by Time magazine as "lean, hard-bitten, taciturn." Health problems and disputes with his superiors pushed him into retirement from his position with the Army Air Corps in 1937, at age 43.
But he quickly got a lucrative job offer with the Chinese Air Force, which was operating under Chiang's Nationalist government. Chennault was asked to come survey the readiness of its fleet.
"Chiang Kai-shek thought he had 500 airplanes," says Nell Chennault Calloway, who is Chennault's granddaughter and CEO of the Chennault Aviation & Military Museum in Monroe, La. "Chennault said, 'You have 500, but you only have 91 that fly.' That's how far behind they were in aviation."
Once the war with Japan officially broke out that summer, China hired Chennault as an adviser to its air force. He became its de facto commander.
Claire Lee Chennault first went to China to survey the Chinese Air Force's readiness, and stayed on to lead the creation of the American Volunteer Group.
Fox Photos/Getty Images
By 1940, after losing backing from the Soviets, China desperately needed more planes. At the time, the U.S. was not officially part of World War II. But President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was concerned about the prospect of Japan defeating China and turning its sights on the U.S.
Chennault traveled back to the U.S., pulling what strings he could to get planes. With the help of T.V. Soong, a Chinese official who was also Chiang's brother-in-law, a deal was worked out to allow China to buy 100 American-made Curtiss P-40 fighter planes.

"He managed to get Roosevelt to allow some of our military pilots — that was the original AVG — to resign their commissions in the U.S. military and go to China as mercenaries, basically, because it was against the international rules for any American military person to be involved in the conflict over there,".
It was neither the first time, not the last, when brave Americans have fought for the freedom of other peoples. It was Jefferson’s US Navy that took on and ultimately routed the Libyan pirates wreaking havoc on Mediterranean shipping in the early 1800s. It was US forces that tipped the balance in two World Wars, and it was a US-led coalition that liberated Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. What was different about the Flying Tigers was that they were volunteers, fighting an enemy superior in numbers and equipment.
The Flying Tigers received many honours American and Chinese. About to celebrate their 50th reunion in 1992, they were retroactively recognized as members of the U.S. military services during the seven months in combat against the Japanese. Their team was then awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for "professionalism, dedication to duty, and extraordinary heroism." And in 1996 their pilots received the Distinguished Flying Cross and their ground crew were all awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

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