As a PBS (Public Broadcasting System) program, this documentary aired February 22, 1999. It's really the best video ever made about the American Volunteer Group, rich in "home movies" that I at least had never seen before, with some telling interviews (Red Foster Hanks, who was briefly married to AVG pilot John Petach, was especially good), and for the first time interviews with a Japanese pilot and two New Zealanders who fought against and alongside the Flying Tigers.

I was breathless of course as to how the producers would handle the problem of AVG claims, since I'd given them galleys of my book in the summer of 1991 and they knew just how many victories I was able to validate in Japanese accounts. Well, they did it brilliantly: they ignored the problem, at least in the cut version that aired on PBS. On two occasions they gave Japanese losses in specific battles. One was spot on (three bombers shot down on Dec. 20 near Kunming) and one was a bit high (ten planes shot down over Rangoon on Dec. 23, against seven that I could find--and some of those might well have fallen to the RAF or anti-aircraft). The wild exaggerations they left to contemporary newsreels and to the AVG vets on camera.

I had a few nits to pick, as any obsessive would. After all, I spent five years immersed in the subject and am immensely proud of the trivia I dredged up. The stock footage of Japanese bombers often showed the wrong planes for the battle in progress. The gun-camera footage gave the impression that the AVG Tomahawks were thus equipped, which they weren't. The AVG vets were shabbily treated, but not so shabbily as the video would have it--Red Petach was flown home by the U.S. Army, for crying out loud, with Charlie Bond as one of her escorts! They got home on August 7, after less than three weeks en route--VIP treatment for the time.