RARE World War 2 Flying Tigers Claire L...

Updated August 26, 2026

Chennault Signed Letter. CHENNAULT, Claire L. (1893-1958). Founder of the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers) in China. Adviser for the Chinese Air Force from 1937 and became Chiang Kai Shek’s Chief of Staff for Air. Chennault was given command of the U.S. 14th Air Force. ORIGINAL mimeographed “ORDER OF THE DAY,” 1 March 1945. Headquarters, Fourteenth Air Force. (to be read to all units of the 14th Air Force at Morning or Evening Meals, 10 March). Two pages, in part: “On 10 March the 14th Air Force will mark its second anniversary with justifiable pride in the accomplishment of the year. Fortunate in standards and experience born out of the early, hard fighting, tight pinched days of the American Volunteer Group and The China Air Task Force the 14th Air Force , in the past year, has sustained its best traditions and rounded out its wide experience--at huge expense to the enemy--Japan. For the organizational year which ends 10 March, the 14th Air Force has destroyed more than 1,200 enemy planes, more than 500 of them were shot down in air combat. These figures do not include more than 190 probables nor the hundreds damaged in air combat, nor the probables and damaged, left by our bombers and fighters on burning enemy airdromes. In destruction of enemy aircraft, as in the destruction of enemy installations and surplus lines our missions have been invariably outnumbered by enemy air strength. But through surprise and combat proficiency we have destroyed more than eight enemy planes in air combat for every plane of ours that he has shot down. Fighters and bombers of the 14th Air Force since March 1944 have sunk nearly 600,000 tons of enemy shipping, with 270,000 additional tons probably sunk and nearly 450,000 tons damaged. That is a total of more than 1,300,000 tons. At least 18 enemy naval vessels not included in the tonnage were destroyed by our fighters and bombers, 14 were probably destroyed and 18 were damaged. During the year we destroyed more than 2,600 smaller craft on which the enemy depends so greatly for supply lines on the coast and in the occupied river valleys of interior China…since June, units of the 14th Air Force have killed more than 30,000 enemy troops and nearly 10,000 troop horses and pack horses. More than 700 enemy locomotives have been destroyed... we have knocked out more than 100 bridges on enemy lines of communication...As modern air forces go, all this has been done by few with little, often under extremely adverse weather conditions and over the world’s most unfavorable terrain... .Not least among the accomplishments of the 14th Air Force in its second year was the protection of more than two million Chinese refugees evacuating areas of Central and South China. For the first time since the Japanese attacked, hundreds of thousands moved under the sheltering wings of the 14th Air Force, ahead of the Japanese armies, free from wanton strafing and bombing, aided by our surgeons and flight nurses... transp

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