Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942

During World War II, in the skies over Rangoon, Burma, a handful of American pilots met and bloodied the Imperial Wild Eagles of Japan and in turn won immortality as the Flying Tigers. One of America’s most famous combat forces, the Tigers were recruited to defend beleaguered China for $600 a month and a bounty of $500 for each Japanese plane they shot down-fantastic money in an era when a Manhattan hotel room cost three dollars a night. To bring his prize-winning history of the American Volunteer Group up to date, Daniel Ford has twice rewritten his original text, drawing on the most recent U.S., British, and Japanese scholarship, along with new information about AVG pilots and crewmen, their Royal Air Force colleagues, and their Japanese opponents.

Admirable, wrote Chennault biographer Martha Byrd of Ford’s original text. A readable book based on sound sources. Expect some surprises. Flying Tigers won the Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence in the year of its first publication.