Claire Lee Chennault

Maj. 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 and raised in Waterproof, Louisiana, 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).

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.

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.

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 supported the Kuomintang against Mao Zedong's Communists in the Chinese Civil War and supported the U.S. military during the Korean War and the French during the First Indochina War. He was promoted to lieutenant general 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 the 1980s – 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). 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 a young Chinese woman named Ann Chen, who was a reporter for the Central News Agency. Since the death of Chennault, Ann Chen has been one of Taiwan's chief lobbyists in Washington.

External links

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

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