This website contains files and images about the American Volunteer Group commanded by Claire Chennault. The AVG Flying Tigers defended Burma and China with their shark-faced P-40 Tomahawks in the opening months of the Pacific War, December 1941 - July 1942.

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ANNALS OF THE FLYING TIGERS

Chief of Staff reading list

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!

Ken Jernstedt ID card
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


A 'SPECIAL AIR UNIT' FOR CHINA:

THE TIGERS FORGE A LEGEND:

THE P-40 FILES:

BOOKS ETC.

A GOOD MYTH NEVER DIES: