Chennault, Maj-General Claire L.

Chennault, Maj-General Claire L. (1890–1958),US Army officer who served as a pilot in the First World War and as chief of US Army Air Corps fighter training afterwards. He was sufficiently unorthodox to maintain, against the accepted wisdom of the day, that bombers needed the support of fighters (see air power). In 1937 he was retired because of hearing problems and accepted a post to train Chinese pilots in Chiang Kai-shek's air force who were to be equipped with American aircraft to fight the Japanese (see China incident). In November 1940 he returned to the USA to recruit American pilots and maintenance staff who became the nucleus of the American Volunteer Group (The Flying Tigers) which fought the Japanese in China and in the Burma campaign. It never numbered more than 200 aircraft, but Chennault's training made it very successful in combat.

In April 1942 Chennault was recalled to active service and was promoted brig-general (a rank he already held in the Chinese Air Force). From July 1942 he commanded the newly formed China Air Task Force (Fourteenth USAAF from March 1943), which controlled all Army Air Force units in China, and this organized the air ferry known as the Hump which flew supplies into China from India over the Himalayas. In October 1942 he gained Roosevelt's attention—and the necessary matériel—when he asserted that with 12 heavy and 30 medium bombers flying from Chinese bases he could ‘accomplish the downfall of Japan’. This proved illusory (and many of Chennault's bases were overrun by the Japanese ICHI-GŌ offensive which started in 1944) while he became increasingly involved in arguments over the allocation of resources with Stilwell who commanded US forces in the China–Burma–India theatre. In July 1945 he resigned in protest against the proposed disbandment of the joint Chinese–American wing of the Chinese Air Force.

Bibliography

Chennault, C. , Way of a Fighter (New York, 1949).