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Home , Claire Lee Chennault, John Birch (missionary)

A Window on the Development of Modern Intelligence and the Problem of Intelligence in

Bob Bergin

Claire Chennault went to China intelligence. Without a continu- in 1937 as a military adviser to ous stream of accurate informa- Chiang Kai-shek as Japan’s war tion keeping the fighters posted on China expanded. During late on exactly where the high-speed 1940–41 he would organize and bombers were, attempts at command the American Volun- interception were like hunting As an officer in the Army teer Group (AVG), popularly needles in a limitless “ known as the “,” an 1 Air Corps, Claire haystack.” Chennault came to air unit supported covertly by the before Japan’s realize the importance of Fighter planes had domi- . Chen- nated the skies and military intelligence in the early nault understood the value of thinking during World War I, 1930s. intelligence and wrestling with but that changed quickly when the problems of acquiring it dur- the war ended. In 1921, Billy ing most of his career. Most of Mitchell showed that airplanes what has been written about could sink captured German Chennault has focused on his battleships and “popularity ” leadership of the Flying Tigers, shifted from the fighter boys… his relationship with the Repub- to the lumbering bombers, even lic of China, and his service during World War II. This article then growing bigger and faster.” draws from his memoirs and Bomber advocates believed that other material to specifically the more powerful bombers address Chennault’s approach to would always get through and intelligence. that the fighter planes sent against them would be ineffec- As an officer in the Army Air tive. Advances in technology Corps, Claire Lee Chennault gave weight to their argu- came to realize the importance ments. When the B-10 bomber of intelligence in the early appeared, it was heavily armed 1930s, when he was the senior and capable of flying at 235 instructor in fighter tactics at mph, faster than the P-26 the Air Corps Tactical School at “Peashooter,” the standard Maxwell Field in Alabama. He fighter of the US Army Air had been trying to modernize Corps. air maneuvers fighter techniques and con- during the early 1930s seemed cluded that the “biggest prob- to prove that “due to increased lem of modern fighters was speeds and limitless space it is

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the authors. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US gov- ernment endorsement of an article’s factual statements and interpretations.

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impossible for fighters to inter- and won wide praise. Chen- China on a three-month con- cept bombers.”2 nault also tried to advance his tract to make a confidential ideas by writing articles, and by survey of the Chinese Air Force Chennault was convinced that exploring what was being done (CAF). He interrupted his jour- with modern tactics and timely elsewhere. He studied the air ney to make a side trip through information the bombers would warning net systems developed Japan that would illustrate his be intercepted and destroyed. in England and Germany and far-sightedness, his great inter- There was no question that looked for ways to improve est in intelligence, and the interception was difficult. At them. Among his writings was almost natural feel he had for that time, the only information The Role of Defensive Pur- its acquisition. on incoming bombers that suit,which defined the role of American air defense might get defensive aircraft and laid out Billy McDonald was waiting was from a haphazard warning the thinking that would be the on the dock at Kobe, Japan, net of observers whose primary basis for the famous air warn- when the liner President function was to alert civilians to ing net he would later estab- Garfield docked. McDonald was take cover. Chennault set out to lish in China. 3 one of the other two pilots on resolve the dual problems of the Flying Trapeze. Chennault tactics and intelligence. had recommended him and sev- Chennault as Collector eral others to the Chinese, and To develop new tactics and McDonald was now working at demonstrate the teamwork that The final performance of the CAF flight school at he believed was fundamental to Chennault’s Flying Trapeze Hangchow. Had the Japanese modern fighter tactics, Chen- was at the Miami Air Races in known that, they would not nault formed a three-aircraft December 1935. Among the have granted McDonald a visa acrobatic team that became spectators were representa- or, as Chennault put it, known as “Three Men on a Fly- tives from the Chinese Aero- “ensured the ubiquitous little ing Trapeze.” It represented the nautical Affairs Commission, fellows of the secret police on Air Corps all over the country who were looking for Ameri- our trail.” cans to help build China’s air force. Chennault was But McDonald somehow man- offered a job at the aged to get himself listed as an Chinese flying school. assistant manager of a troupe It was tempting. His of acrobats that was touring ideas were controver- Japan and passed through sial, his career passport formalities unnoticed. stalled, and his He stayed with the acrobats health not good. He while they appeared at several stayed in touch with theaters, then left them in the Chinese and Osaka to be on the dock when started to plan his the President Garfield arrived. retirement for 1937, In his passport, Chennault was when he would com- identified as a farmer. plete 20 years of ser- vice. What followed was like the excellent adventure of two On 30 April 1937 young operations officers on a Chennault retired field training exercise. They from the US Army hired an open car and tried to Air Corps; the next Chennault (middle) as a member of the Flying Trapeze look like tourists as they “set off in 1935. Photo © Bettmann/Corbis morning he sailed for to see the country through the

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They hid cameras and binoculars under their topcoats and, eyes of experienced airmen with “an unhealthy interest in harbors and airfields,” toured Ky- gauging potential targets.” oto, Osaka, and Kobe, then sailed the inland sea They hid cameras and binocu- lars under their topcoats and, with “an unhealthy interest in imagined how close it already tary establishment, “current harbors and airfields,” toured was. He arrived in China on 30 intelligence on the Orient just Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe, then May 1937 and set off on a sur- didn’t exist,” he wrote. He sailed the inland sea where vey of the Chinese Air Force. looked for ways to learn about they tried to identify shipping He was at a flying school on 7 his enemy, and what he learned routes and islands where new July, when the Marco Polo he shared with the US embassy. war industries were being Bridge incident occurred. The From Japanese airplanes that established. Japanese, who had held parts of crashed during the first air bat- China since 1931, were on a tles he salvaged equipment and Chennault said nothing in his maneuver near the Marco Polo sent the best of the materiel to memoirs about planning for Bridge outside Peking. When the US naval attaché. With the this trip, but he must have done one of their soldiers disap- Japanese advancing on Nank- a good deal of it. There was the peared, the Japanese accused ing, the attaché secured it in matter of his identity and the Chinese of kidnapping him the safest place he knew, McDonald’s “cover,” and the and pressed demands that the aboard the US gunboat Panay. itinerary, which took the two Chinese could not meet. They Two days later the Panay was through industrial districts, used the Chinese refusal to attacked by the Japanese and near construction sites, and to occupy Peking. sent to the bottom of the “areas where industry seemed Yangtze. With it went Chen- to be expanding with the suspi- Chennault immediately sent a nault’s collection of Japanese cious speed of a military enter- cable to Chiang Kai-shek, offer- military equipment. 5 prise.” ing his services “in any capac- ity.” Chiang accepted, and sent Chennault continued to col- The trip was very successful, him to the CAF’s advanced lect everything he could about Chennault thought. They took flight school at Nan Chang to the Japanese Air Force, but his photos of potential targets and direct air combat training. But efforts made little impression “filled notebooks full of data.” Chiang also had more immedi- back in Washington. In 1939, “Much to my surprise,” he ate needs. On 13 August, Chen- the Chinese captured an intact wrote, “I found out four years nault was included in a meeting Japanese Type 97 “Nate” later that our notebooks and of Chiang’s war council. There fighter. Chennault had it flown pictures contained more infor- was no Chinese officer who in extensive tests against com- mation on Japanese targets could organize a large combat parable British, American and than the War Department mission, and Chennault spent Russian aircraft and compiled a Intelligence files.” 4 This Japa- the evening planning the first thick dossier on the Nate’s con- nese interlude gives an excel- Chinese air-strike on the Japa- struction and performance. He lent insight into Chennault’s nese warships that had shelled believed it was one of the best thinking at a time when Amer- that day. From that acrobatic airplanes ever built— ica had virtually no experience point on, Chennault was to “climbs like a skyrocket and in covert collection. It showed have a major role in the war. At maneuvers like a squirrel”— the value he set on intelligence the beginning of September, and turned the dossier over to and its role in the Pacific war Chiang gave him responsibility US military intelligence. he knew would come—and that for all operations of the Chi- he could find ways to get it. nese Air Force. In time Chennault received a letter from the War Depart- Chennault may have foreseen Intelligence was now a major ment. It said that “aeronauti- the war, but he could not have concern. Within the US mili- cal experts believed it was

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He learned much by watching early air battles over Nanking from the ground, and even more by getting in the sky with the and…learned some of the les- Japanese. sons that later saved many an American pilot’s life over China.” Many believed that he impossible to build an airplane additional nets as they were engaged the Japanese aircraft with such performance… with needed, and all the nets were in combat during these forays, the specifications submitted.” interconnected until there was but Chennault always denied In late 1940, he visited Wash- one vast air warning net spread it. 9 ington and brought with him over all of Free China. data on the first model “Zero.” The Hawk Special was also That information was never dis- The net was also used to warn used extensively to search for seminated. “American pilots got civilians of bombing raids and Japanese carriers off the coast their first information on its as an aid to navigation. A lost and to monitor Japanese troop performance from the Zero’s 20- American pilot could circle a movements. “We proved the mm. cannon a year later over village almost anywhere in value of reconnaissance so Oahu and the Philippines.” 6 China and in short order be told effectively that an entire Japa- exactly where he was—by a net nese fighter group near Shang- With the air defense of Nank- radio station that had received hai was ordered to concentrate ing his responsibility, Chen- a telephone call from the vil- on destroying the Hawk Spe- nault established the first of his lage he was circling. The net cial.” The Japanese never did warning nets. All available was so effective that Chennault catch the Hawk; it was information on enemy move- could later say: “The only time destroyed on the ground while ments was channeled into a a Japanese plane bombed an being flown by another pilot. central control room and plot- American base in China unan- ted on a map that Chennault nounced was on Christmas Eve “Civilian” Warriors: used to control the defending of 1944, when a lone bomber The AVG Chinese fighters. He adapted sneaked in…from the traffic By the autumn of 1940 Japa- the net as the situation pattern of (American) trans- nese advances had made the changed and the Chinese with- ports circling to land after their situation in China desperate. drew to and Chung- Hump trip.”8 The first of the Japanese Zero king. It would take time before models had appeared over the warning net became what Japanese fighter tactics was Chungking, “like hawks in a he envisioned, “a vast spider another area Chennault avidly chicken yard,” and eliminated net of people, radios, tele- pursued. He learned much by what remained of the Chinese phones, and telegraph lines watching early air battles over Air Force. The cities of east that covered all of Free China Nanking from the ground, and China were being bombed regu- accessible to enemy aircraft.”7 even more by getting in the sky larly and without opposition; a with the Japanese. When Cur- hundred or more Japanese The methodical development tiss-Wright exhibited a P-36 bombers struck Chungking of that spider net began later in “Hawk Special” at Nanking every day. More territory was Province. Four radio soon after his arrival in China, being lost to the Japanese and stations in a ring 40 kilometers he got Madame Chiang, head of even Chiang Kai-shek believed outside city reported a newly created CAF commis- there was a limit to how much to the control center in Kun- sion, to buy it as his personal the Chinese people could take. ming. Each radio station was airplane. Stripped of all unnec- He summoned Chennault and connected by telephone to eight essary equipment, the Hawk presented a plan to buy Ameri- reporting points, with each of Special became “the fastest can airplanes and hire Ameri- those points responsible for a plane in China skies.” With it can pilots to fly them. 20 kilometer square of sky. This Chennault got his “first taste of pattern was repeated to create Jap flak and fighter tactics,

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The matter of personnel was more complicated. By law, Amer- Chennault did not think it ican citizens could not serve in the armed services of a bellig- could be done. US neutrality erent foreign power. laws stood in the way, as did the lack of aircraft. Every new airplane coming off American when the British agreed to Asia under passports that iden- production lines not going to decline delivery of 100 ready-to- tified them as farmers, mission- the US Army or Navy was com- go P-40 fighters to get 200 P- aries, acrobats, salesmen, and mitted to the European allies. 40s of a later model. teachers. It was a formula the Chiang’s brother-in-law, T.V. US Air Force would use nearly Soong, was already in Washing- The matter of personnel was three decades later in Laos to ton lobbying China’s friends. He more complicated. By law, man a radar station that offi- cabled Chiang that Chen- American citizens could not cials could purport was not run nault’s presence “would assist serve in the armed services of a by the US government. 11 in convincing authorities here,” belligerent foreign power. The and Chennault was on his way solution was to have the men The AVG was called the “Fly- in October, for a homecoming hired by a civilian entity rather ing Tigers” by the US press that would last into the sum- than the Chinese government. after spectacular early success mer of 1941. A company already operating in against the Japanese over China fit the bill: The Central Rangoon after the Japanese Despite his doubts, Chen- Aircraft Manufacturing Com- attacks on Pearl Harbor, the nault put forward a plan to the pany (CAMCO), a private con- Philippines, Malaya and other War Department that called for cern that had been assembling, Pacific bases. The United States 200 bombers and 300 fighters operating and repairing air- and its Allies were on the that would use China as a plat- craft for China. Majority shares defensive everywhere in Asia, form to bomb Japan. So large a were owned by the Chinese gov- and in the popular mind it number of aircraft was clearly ernment; a New York company seemed that only the AVG stood impossible. Secretary of War owned the rest. in the way of a quick Japanese Henry L. Stimson thought the victory in Burma and China. idea “rather half-baked,” but Roosevelt agreed in April 1941 President Roosevelt started to to let US military reserve offic- When the AVG was dis- get interested. The idea of ers and active duty enlisted banded after the contracts bombing Japan was set aside— men resign from their service ended on 4 July 1942, it had the United States was still not and join the AVG. Roosevelt’s been in combat for less than at war with Japan—and the agreement was strictly oral; an seven months. In that time the plan evolved into protection of unpublished executive order AVG was credited with destroy- the Burma Road with Ameri- cited in many histories appears ing 297 enemy aircraft in aerial 10 can pilots and 100 fighters. never to have existed. The combat and another 153 proba- Chennault started working out AVG would serve the country’s bly destroyed. On the ground, the details of what would best interests, but it was not AVG pilots destroyed 200 become the First American Vol- something that could be done enemy aircraft and great quan- unteer Group (AVG), as a unit openly. Secretary of the Navy tities of Japanese supplies and 12 of the Chinese Air Force. Frank Knox and Acting Deputy equipment. The pilots attrib- Chief of Staff George Brett qui- uted their victories to the tac- Introduction of the Lend- etly arranged for CAMCO tics that Chennault taught Lease Act after Roosevelt’s recruiters to enter bases and them. 13 It was what he had reelection in November 1940 recruit officers and men from learned from his years of and its passage the following the US services. In July 1941, observing the Japanese Air March made it possible for the having signed one-year con- Force in the skies over China. US government to help China. tracts, 99 pilots and 186 ground Aircraft for the AVG were found support personnel sailed for

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The intelligence Chennault had to depend on came from the Chinese War Ministry via Stilwell’s headquarters in Chungking. our intelligence and rescue relations with Communist armies in the field.” 14 Back in the Army: The nese provided, although it was Intelligence Options outdated, inaccurate, and use- For the same reason, Chen- less to the bombers Chennault nault had few dealings with the Chennault was brought back commanded. But worse than Sino-American Cooperative into the US Army, given a brig- his lack of interest, “Stilwell Organization (SACO), a US adier’s star and made the rank- specifically prohibited the Four- Navy group under Mil- ing American air officer in teenth from any attempts to ton “Mary” Miles that worked China. As the China Air Task gather intelligence. Since the jointly with Tai Li’s organiza- Force that replaced the AVG was the tion. A group of SACO navy grew into the Fourteenth Air only American combat organi- officers worked in Fourteenth Force, Chennault started to zation in China and needed Air Force headquarters under receive at least some of the men fresh and accurate intelli- Chennault’s command. The and airplanes he needed. The gence…I was again faced with officers maintained contact effectiveness of the Fourteenth the choice of obeying Stilwell’s with the Pacific fleet and pro- would depend on the accuracy orders literally…or finding vided shipping intelligence and of the intelligence it had to tar- some other method of getting photo interpretation. “This get its bombers. the information so essential to effective liaison paid enormous our operations.”15 dividends in attacks on enemy The intelligence Chennault’s shipping.” But the intelligence force was getting was not up to The intelligence Chennault gap on the Japanese Army in the job. “Stilwell exhibited a had to depend on came from the China remained. Chennault striking lack of interest in the Chinese War Ministry via Stil- needed to know what was going intelligence problems of the well’s headquarters in Chungk- on behind the enemy lines, China sector of his command,” ing. By the time it reached the inside Japanese-held territory.16 Chennault wrote in his mem- Fourteenth, the information oir, Way of a Fighter. Lt. Gen. was “third hand… generally “I solved this problem by orga- Joseph W. Stilwell was the top- three to six weeks old,” and use- nizing the Fourteenth’s radio- ranking American officer in less for targeting the bombers. intelligence teams within the China and, by Chennault’s There was another Chinese framework of our air-raid-warn- account, was entirely satisfied intelligence source that Chen- ing control network and contin- with the intelligence the Chi- nault had rejected, the Chinese ued to depend officially on Secret Service: Stilwell’s stale, third-hand Chi- “I avoided a nese intelligence....” 17 The air proffered alli- warning net would support the ance with Tai new effort and serve as its Li’s notorious cover. Fourteenth Air Force KMT secret warning net personnel were police. It might already out in the field, living have been use- in villages, temples and caves. ful, but since Chennault’s new field intelli- Tai’s men were gence officers would blend into engaged in a the mix and appear to be part ruthless man- of it until they went beyond the hunt for Com- last American outpost and munists, it crossed into enemy territory. Chennault (r) with Chiang Kai-shek and another US Army would have officer. Undated photo © Bettmann/Corbis meant the end of

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“Most of our field intelligence officers were old China hands. I It required men who could tried to pick men who had lived in China before the war, spoke pass through the lines and the language, knew the customs, and could live in the field on operate in Japanese-occupied Chinese food.” territory for extended periods of time. They would report their own observations and recruit get. Birch pioneered the tech- operated alone, or as two man agents who would report in a niques to provide close air teams, the second man some- timely manner and on a regu- support to ground troops. He times Chinese. Chennault’s lar basis the information served as a forward air control- agent network eventually needed to target the bombers ler and with a hand-cranked spread through many areas of effectively. radio talked aircraft down on Japanese-occupied China. their targets. “Most of our field intelligence In November 1943, OSS chief officers were old China hands. I Birch was adept at moving William Donovan visited China. tried to pick men who had lived through Japanese lines and OSS in China was linked to in China before the war, spoke became the example for those SACO and entangled with Tai the language, knew the cus- who followed. He dyed his hair Li’s secret police. Donovan toms, and could live in the field black, dressed as a farmer and came with the intention of split- on Chinese food.” The first one learned how to walk like one. ting OSS off from SACO and was , “led into our He carried names of Chinese operating unilaterally, but it fold by after Christians to contact in areas quickly became evident that Tai Birch had guided Jimmy and he operated in. Church groups would not tolerate unilateral his raiders out of East China.” became his infrastructure OSS operations. 20 The famous Dolittle Tokyo behind the lines, providing food, Raiders had dropped out of the helpers and safe places to stay. Donovan looked for a way to sky in east China where the He remained in the field for work around this and found young Georgia Baptist had been three years, refusing any leave Chennault willing to help. He serving as a . It until the war was over, he said. agreed to let OSS use the Four- brought Birch into Chungking teenth Air Force as cover for its where he met Chennault. He John Birch was the pioneer unilateral operations behind wanted to serve God and his field intelligence officer, and Japanese lines. The result was country. He was exactly what Chennault came to look on him the 5329th Air and Ground almost as a son.a Others fol- Forces Resources and Techni- Chennault was looking for. 18 lowed: Paul Frillmann was a cal Staff (AGFRTS—or Ag- Chennault sent Birch back to Lutheran missionary who first farts, as it became known). 21 East China to survey secret air- met Chennault in 1938, at a The organization combined OSS fields and gasoline caches, then baseball game at Hangzhou. He and the Fourteenth’s field intel- sent him to work with the guer- later served as chaplain for the ligence staff, added OSS rillas along the Yangtze River. AVG. After the Japanese sur- Research and Analysis person- He recruited agents to report on render he was put in charge of nel and assumed all intelli- Japanese shipping by radio and the OSS office in Beijing. 19 Wil- gence duties of the Fourteenth developed target information on fred Smith, the son of a mis- Air Force. his own. Once, when the bomb- sionary born in China and ers could not find a huge muni- raised on the Yangtze was a The arrangement was a happy tions dump hidden inside a professor of Oriental history; and very effective marriage. village, Birch passed back Sam West, a long-time cosmet- The number of intelligence through the Japanese line, ics salesman in Asia. They officers operating inside Japa- joined the bombers and rode in nese-held territory increased the nose of the lead aircraft to greatly, and intelligence broad- a guide them directly to the tar- Birch was killed in 1945. The John Birch ened to include requirements Society would be named after him.

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Chennault provided the model for the use of proprietary com- mercial arrangements that would be used by the newly-formed reach his goals with the CIA in the post-war period. resources available—be it a Chinese villager with a tele- phone or an “old China hand” beyond the specific needs of the During his years in China, who could dye his hair black, air force. Chennault was Claire Chennault set prece- speak Chinese and walk like pleased with the results—the dents in the way intelligence one. Fourteenth now had more intel- was acquired and used, long ligence than ever—but his before America had an intelli- The AVG was largely Chen- interest in the operation started gence service. He was an inno- nault’s creation, the product of to wane. In time the entire vative thinker, unconventional his planning and leadership. operation would be managed by in his views of air warfare and The air tactics he taught his OSS. intelligence. He set clear objec- men were the result of intelli- tives and used intelligence to gence he gained by his study of the Japanese Air Force, acquired over the years as he combed through wrecked Japa- nese airplanes and observed Japanese pilots maneuvering in the sky. As a result, the AVG was one of the most effective units in the history of aerial warfare. 22

Chennault provided the model for the use of proprietary com- mercial arrangements that would be used by the newly formed CIA in the postwar period. Chennault returned to China after the war to create (CAT), an airline that became of great use to the CIA as it started to assist the anticommunist forces in China. CIA subsidized the air- line, and in August 1950 bought it outright as . 23 Chennault inspecting a Civil Air Transport aircraft and embarked soldiers of the army of the Chinese Nationalists being evacuated from China in 1948. Photo © Bett- ❖ ❖ ❖ mann/Corbis

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Notes

1. Claire Lee Chennault, Way of a Fighter, ed. Robert Holtz (New York: GP Putnam’s Sons, 1949), 21. 2. Chennault, 22. The quoted statement is that of Maj. Gen. Walter Frank, official umpire during 1931 Air Corps maneuvers. 3. Claire Lee Chennault, The Role of Defensive Pursuit, available Washington, DC: Library of Congress Photo- duplication Service, Call number UG630.C486, 39 pages/microfilm 85/6093 (1985). 4. Chennault, 32–33. 5. The Panay was sunk on 12 December 1937. Roy M. Stanley, Prelude to Pearl Harbor: War in China, 1937– 41 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, no date), fn on 106. Stanley notes that Chennault’s “intelligence trea- sure” on the Panay included key parts recovered from the newest Japanese aircraft, “a fact probably known to the Japanese.” 6. Chennault, 94. 7. Ibid., 82. 8. Ibid. 9. Martha Byrd, Chennault: Giving Wings to the Tiger (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1987). Byrd suggests Chennault had good reason for saying little about his actions, “then or later.” A violation of US statutes and War Department regulations, combat would render its practitioners liable to prosecution, possi- bly including loss of retired officer status and pay. 10. Byrd, 117. She notes, “Although it is generally accepted (and stated by Chennault in his own memoir) that Roosevelt signed an unpublished executive order giving authority for American reserve officers and active duty enlisted men to withdraw from US service and join the AVG, no such order was signed by the president. His consent was verbal; specifics were handled by [Lauchlin] Currie, [John] Marshall, and [Frank] Knox.” 11. See Timothy Castle, One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 12. Charles R. Bond, Jr. and Terry H. Anderson, A Flying Tiger’s Diary (College Station: A&M Univer- sity Press, 1984), 214. Daniel Ford, Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991). Ford notes that CAMCO evidently paid $500 bonuses to AVG pilots for 294 planes destroyed and that victories attributed to the AVG ranges from 293 to 298. 13. Edward F. Rector (AVG pilot) interview with author in Military History, February 2001. “The tactics Chen- nault taught us were what made the AVG the famous Flying Tigers.” The same sentiment was voiced by the dozen or more AVG pilots the author has interviewed over the years. 14. Chennault, 257. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., 258. 18. Ibid., 259. 19. See Paul Frillmann and Graham Peck, China: The Remembered Life (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1968). 20. Frederic Wakeman Jr., Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 2003). Wakeman notes that during Dai Li’s (the pinyin rendering of Tai Li) meeting with Donovan in Chungking on 2 December 1943 “Donovan said … if OSS could not secure Dai Li’s cooperation, then it

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Notes (cont.) would work on its own in China.” Dai Li responded by saying “he would kill any OSS agents operating outside SACO on Chinese soil.” The next day, Chiang Kai-shek reportedly told Donovan, “We Chinese object to a for- eign secret service or intelligence service coming into China and working without the knowledge of the Chi- nese. Remember that this is a sovereign country and please conduct yourself accordingly.” 21. Maochun Yu, OSS in China: Prelude to (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 155. Yu writes that the name was created by Donovan aide Maj. Carl Hoffman to avoid implying any link to OSS. Hoffman told Donovan, “It was the most confused title I could think of at the moment.” 22. Byrd, 152: “The men had destroyed 297 enemy aircraft and lost only 14 of their own planes in combat…. The cost in men was four prisoners and twenty-two dead…. The cost in money was $3 million to recruit and operate, $8 million for planes. The US Army purchased 54 surviving planes for a credit against Lend-Lease of $3.5 million. When the books were cleared, Chennault turned over to the Madame a remainder of $7,990 to apply to war charity.” 23. For information about the origins of Air America and its uses after World War II see “Air America: Uphold- ing the Airmen’s Bond” at www.foia.cia.gov/airAmerica.asp. On the site is a collection of documents revealing the role that Air America, the Agency's proprietary airline, played in the search and rescue of pilots and per- sonnel during the . ❖ ❖ ❖

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