Irascible, opinionated, and underappreciated, Chennault was the champion of innovative fighter tactics. EN. Claire Lee Chennault died nearly 44 years ago, but even now, he is still a famous man, widely renowned as the glamorous leader of the World War Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon GII “Flying Tigers.” Chennault’s heroics against Japanese forces in the Far By Rebecca Grant Photo by R.T. Smith via Robert F. Dorr 70 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2002 71 Irascible, opinionated, and underappreciated, Chennault was the champion of innovative fighter tactics. EN. Claire Lee Chennault died nearly 44 years ago, but even now, he is still a famous man, widely renowned as the glamorous leader of the World War Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon GII “Flying Tigers.” Chennault’s heroics against Japanese forces in the Far By Rebecca Grant Photo by R.T. Smith via Robert F. Dorr 70 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2002 71 for flight training four times be- fore finally granting approval after the Armistice. Chennault learned to fly the Curtiss Jenny at Kelly Field in San Antonio, where he was awarded the rating of “fighter pi- lot” in 1919. Chennault was honorably dis- charged from the Reserve in 1920, but within three months, he was back in the Army with a regular commis- sion and serving in various flying capacities. Before long he was com- manding a squadron in Hawaii. In due course, Chennault attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Lang- ley Field, Va., where he stayed on after graduation as the senior in- structor in pursuit tactics. Chennault made good use of his Chennault, pictured here as a major general, wore not only US wings but also five years at ACTS. He dedicated those of the Chinese air force. himself to modernizing the concept of fighter tactics at a time when East made him an enduring legend. stance, one whose headstrong pur- mainstream thinking among his peers When he died in 1958, the New York suit of proper fighter tactics and favored bombers. Times put his obituary on Page One. refusal to be swept up in bomber Chennault certainly was not “anti- Famous? Yes. But highly regarded theories of the 1930s made him bomber.” Far from it; his views about as an airpower thinker? Surprisingly, more than a Hollywood hero. These the strategic application of airpower no. analysts say that, from his days at paralleled Mitchell’s writings. Col. Chennault today rates only occa- the Tactical School in the early Peter R. Faber, an officer on today’s sional mention in books and studies 1930s to his actions in the China– Air Staff who has studied and writ- on the evolution of airpower. His Burma–India theater and afterward, ten about Chennault’s career, called status as an innovator does not com- Chennault stood out for his grasp his beliefs “indistinguishable from pare with that of Mitchell, Arnold, of how to win air supremacy in those of a typical Douhet–quoting or Doolittle. The image of Chennault harsh conditions. strategic bombing advocate of the rests mainly on his long-ago opera- For supporters, the American Vol- 1930s.” tional exploits, not his long-term con- unteer Group is Exhibit A. During In a 1933 article for the Army’s tribution to airpower or the Air Force. its brief, one-year existence, Chen- Coast Artillery Journal, Chennault Chennault was an outsider in the nault’s AVG—the Flying Tigers— said, “The aerial weapon can be ap- service. Early in his career, he chal- outflew and outfoxed far more expe- plied directly to the national resis- lenged the strategic airpower doc- rienced Japanese pilots. It fought a tance of the enemy’s population, as trine of the Air Corps Tactical School, highly mobile air battle over Burma well as to his means of resistance, creating more than a few enemies. and much of China. It tallied a 15-to- before surface forces gain contact His sensational postwar memoirs 1 kill ratio. and after surface forces attain a static only poured salt into wounds opened Chennault’s true achievement condition.” during that clash. The bitterness lin- stemmed from his intuitive grasp of What drove a wedge between gers. fighter tactics and his successes in Chennault and his peers was not dif- Decades after that political battle, defensive air wars in the neglected ferences over the value of bombers doctrine guru I.B. Holley Jr. contin- China–Burma–India theater. It is a but Chennault’s passionate belief that ued to slam Chennault as one whose record of achievement matched by fighters could effectively handle “shoddy thinking and self-serving few others. hostile aircraft, whether they were retrospective distortions muddied the incoming enemy bombers or enemy doctrinal picture.” Holley declared The Tactician fighters threatening America’s own his regrets that Air University had Chennault was born in 1890 in bombers. given the Flying Tiger a prominent Commerce, Tex. As a young man, Chennault was influenced by his memorial. he taught school in Louisiana. Then personal study of World War I op- Today, AU’s summary biography came World War I, and he left teach- erations. He rapidly absorbed the calls Chennault’s ideas on airpower ing for good to take an Army officer overriding airpower lesson of the “not sound.” It laments, “He has been commission in the Infantry Reserve Great War: Air supremacy was es- the subject of a number of biogra- in November 1917. sential for all operations. Only pur- phies—probably more than he de- He soon transferred to the avia- suit aircraft trained to “destroy hos- serves.” tion section of the Army Signal tile enemy aircraft” could win air For others, however, Chennault Reserve Corps and served in the supremacy, he concluded. is revered as a man of great sub- war. The Army rejected his request In Chennault’s view, “no new aero- 72 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2002 nautical development or invention” since the Great War had changed that fact. Chennault said the next war would start with a battle for air supremacy, and pursuit aviation would be the most useful tool in the opening phases. He held firm on this belief even as others shifted to the notion that bomber assaults on cities would dominate the war. Tired Tactics Chennault, for all his interest in the Great War, had no intention of flying like a World War I American pursuit pilot. On arrival at ACTS, he was dismayed to find that pursuit instructor Clayton Bissell still taught the dawn patrol and fighter sweep tactics of 1918. Chennault’s prime interest lay in Generals Chennault (center) and Bissell (right) meet with Col. Robert Scott, building on German air tactics de- one of Chennault’s commanders, at Kunming airfield, China, in 1942. veloped in the middle of the war by German ace Oswald Boelcke. He was dive-bombing and strafing runs “As far as Chennault was con- impressed with Boelcke’s pioneer- against coast artillery units practic- cerned, pursuit aviation had the tech- ing discovery: “Two planes could be ing on the beach. No one had noti- nical capability to neutralize strate- maneuvered to fight together as a fied the artillerymen that the raid gic bombardment,” said Faber. team.” Chennault thereafter spurned was an exercise. The task, then, was to update pur- all tactics of individual dogfight pi- He goaded his pilots into flying suit tactics, which just happened to lots seeking kills at the expense of formation aerobatics to give them a be part of Chennault’s job. From tactical success for the whole forma- tactical edge. By emphasizing basic his arrival in 1930 at ACTS through tion. fighter maneuvers, Chennault trained 1935, Chennault carried out, taught, Chennault left an impression—for his pilots to learn the maximum ca- and wrote on fighter tactics and the many, a negative one—through his pabilities of their airplanes, com- general requirements for “air force.” harassment of the Navy and coast pensate for weaknesses, and use all Chennault got permission to form artillery in Hawaii. He once led his advantages. an ACTS aerobatic team, which he squadron in a formation Immelmann Technically, Chennault was on dubbed “Three Men on a Flying to climb out and get on the tail of a solid ground, but advances in bomber Trapeze.” The trio was a labora- group of Navy dive bombers. An- design were about to change matters tory for fighter tactics as well as a other day, the squadron flew mock dramatically. way to titillate the public. Specta- tors at air shows across the South saw three airplanes performing loops, spins, and chandelles in synchro- nization. Tactically, some of the moves were startling and of little use for real combat. Such was the case with one that Chennault described as “a squir- rel-cage effect in which each plane rolled around the other while doing an individual barrel roll.” However, Chennault’s passion for stunt flying was all part of a deep belief that fighter tactics had to move toward greater concentration of force to keep control of the air in the next war. He later wrote that the Trapeze act proved Boelcke’s theory that “fighters could battle together through the most violent maneu- vers of combat.” Chennault (center), in the “Trapeze” days, is pictured here with two members In other words, air supremacy be- of that aerobatic team, William MacDonald (left) and John Williamson. All three gan with the flight lead. would go on to become aviation advisors to Chiang Kai-shek. He noted, too, that pilots experi- AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2002 73 ers in two weeks of action.