China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group. - When tigers ruled the sky: the Flying Tigers: American outlaw pilots over China in World War II

The victories of these Americans over the rice paddies of Burma are comparable in character, if not in scope, with those won by the RAF over the hop fields of Kent in the Battle of Britain.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

T hey seemed to materialize out of nowhere at a time when the American people, stunned by the horrible defeat at Pearl Harbor, yearned in vain for news that Americans somewhere in the world were striking back against the Axis. In December 1941, the headlines were filled with grim reports of the backbone of the American fleet at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and an American air force destroyed on the ground in the Philippines. Suddenly, there were reports of American fighter pilots sweeping Japanese bombers from the skies over China. Few in America had heard of them, and the question was asked, Who are these Flying Tigers?

As with the fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force who had saved the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain to whom Churchill compared them, the Flying Tigers would become a heroic symbol at a historically dark moment.

Today, the Flying Tigers endure as probably the best-known American fighter aircraft group in history. Their name still resonates in the historical memory of World War II, just as the image of their shark-faced P-40s is an essential icon of American airpower in that conflict.

Their well-justified fame is entirely out of proportion to their numbers. Churchill compared them to the heroes of the RAF about whom he had said never was so much owed by so many to so few. The Flying Tigers were also a fewindeed, a much, much fewer few, a few so few that today it is incomprehensible that an outfit that could put fewer than a dozen warplanes into the sky on a good day could have been so effective. Over China, the Japanese estimated that they were opposed by about three hundred Flying Tigers, but the tenacious Americans rarely had more than a tenth of that number of aircraft in flyable condition, and many fewer in action in any given battle.

Like Alexander the Great and a mere handful of heroes and heroic units throughout military history, the Flying Tigers were never defeated in combat. They fought about fifty major aerial battles against hugely lopsided odds and never lost one. They were usually outnumbered by more than four to one, and yet they routinely emerged from combat without a loss. They are confirmed to have shot down well over two hundred enemy aircraft, but they probably downed close to twice that number, never mind those they destroyed on the ground. Meanwhile, only ten Flying Tigers were lost in combat, and only three were captured.