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P-40s in the missing man formation
David Lee (Tex) Hill, one of the original Flying Tigers, died on Thursday.
I think it was the Random House "Young Reader's Library" book about the Flying Tigers that got me interested in World War II history when I was 10. (Read it in the hospital after one of the two surgeries I had that year. Lots of downtime for reading I had.)
While the Flying Tigers were officially mercenaries as the United States was not at war with Japan (the "American Volunteer Group" was recruited and trained before Pearl Harbor, though most of them didn't see their first combat until January 1942), most of the pilots were members of the US military. Tex Hill was a Navy bomber pilot who was looking for something more exciting, so he resigned his naval commission and joined the AVG. (The fact that he had a working knowledge of Chinese, being raised by missionaries, probably helped.) Hill was given command of 2 Squadron (the "Panda Bears"). Though the Tigers only fought for eight months, they seriously disrupted Japan's air operations and slowed the previously unstoppable advance of Japanese armies across China.
When the US Army Air Force took over responsibility for air operations in China, Hill was one of five AVG pilots who accepted commissions into the USAAF. (Others, such as Greg Boyington, returned to their original services - Boyington would gain fame and notoriety as the commander of the Marines' "Black Sheep Squadron" in the South Pacific.) Hill would rise to command the 23rd Fighter Group, the official USAAF successors to the AVG.
There's about 40 of the original AVG living. Most of them are ground crew - the pilots naturally had a rather reduced life expectancy. One more down...
I think it was the Random House "Young Reader's Library" book about the Flying Tigers that got me interested in World War II history when I was 10. (Read it in the hospital after one of the two surgeries I had that year. Lots of downtime for reading I had.)
While the Flying Tigers were officially mercenaries as the United States was not at war with Japan (the "American Volunteer Group" was recruited and trained before Pearl Harbor, though most of them didn't see their first combat until January 1942), most of the pilots were members of the US military. Tex Hill was a Navy bomber pilot who was looking for something more exciting, so he resigned his naval commission and joined the AVG. (The fact that he had a working knowledge of Chinese, being raised by missionaries, probably helped.) Hill was given command of 2 Squadron (the "Panda Bears"). Though the Tigers only fought for eight months, they seriously disrupted Japan's air operations and slowed the previously unstoppable advance of Japanese armies across China.
When the US Army Air Force took over responsibility for air operations in China, Hill was one of five AVG pilots who accepted commissions into the USAAF. (Others, such as Greg Boyington, returned to their original services - Boyington would gain fame and notoriety as the commander of the Marines' "Black Sheep Squadron" in the South Pacific.) Hill would rise to command the 23rd Fighter Group, the official USAAF successors to the AVG.
There's about 40 of the original AVG living. Most of them are ground crew - the pilots naturally had a rather reduced life expectancy. One more down...
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I didn't get to meet him myself, but I've seen his interviews on the History Channel. A great man.
AVGs
(Anonymous) 2007-10-17 12:22 am (UTC)(link)Re: AVGs
Current info:
AVG Survivors (referenced by Mr. Ford in the "errata and corrections" section of his website)
By the way, Dan, still have that autographed copy of Incident at Muc Wa that I got from you several years ago. Good book!