ANNALS OF THE FLYING TIGERS
The Air Force Chief of Staff has released his
2013 reading list.
I'm pleased to see that
Flying Tigers is right up there. And what a grand tribute to the
gallant mercenaries of 1941-1942!
Shantih (peace) to Ken Jernstedt, who died
last month at the age of 95. He was the last surviving Flying Tiger pilot
from the AVG's early combats at Rangoon and Kunming.
Ken was one of several Marine Corps pilots to join the American
Volunteer Group in the summer of 1941. (That's his AVG identification card
above.) Assigned to the 3rd Squadron
"Hell's Angels," he was sent down to Rangoon in December to help defend
Burma against Japanese invasion, which put him in the thick of the
Christmas battles over the capital. During his months with the AVG he
was credited with 10.5 Japanese planes destroyed, of which three were
air-to-air victories. (Most of the others resulted from a devastating,
two-man attack on a Japanese force at Magwe, with left many planes burning
on the field and arguably reduced the scale of the Japanese air attack
on Magwe a few days later.)
After the AVG was disbanded in July 1942, Ken became a test pilot for
Republic Aviation. Postwar, he worked for Coca-Cola Bottling and served
for many years as mayor of his home town, Hood River, Oregon, and as a
state legislator. He was one of the first Flying Tigers that I interviewed,
and one of the nicest. Blue skies, Ken! - Dan Ford
