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Loading... Chennault: Giving Wings to the Tigerby Ms. Martha Byrd
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Claire Lee Chennault was the colorful leader of the Flying Tigers, the famed volunteer group who served in China in the early days of America's involvement in World War II. Chennault should have been played by John Wayne in a movie. He was tough, compassionate, diplomatic, and brash, and he was a leader beloved of his men and hated or disrespected by much of the Army brass. The story of Chennault's brilliant approach to battling Japan in the air has been told in a variety of books and movies, usually focusing on the pilots and planes. But this book tells an equally exciting but ultimately disheartening story of the immense struggle Chennault underwent in trying to accomplish his task. Army and Army Air Force generals like Joe Stillwell, Hap Arnold, and George Marshall may not exactly have sabotaged Chennault's part of the war effort, but they certainly did little to help it, having little understanding and no respect for Chennault's ideas or for his close relationship with the Chinese people and their leader, Chiang Kai-Shek. While Chennault could be bull-headed and unwilling to see the larger picture, what comes across most strongly in this well-researched and fascinating book is the picture of a man forever stymied in doing what he felt was right. While the Flying Tigers material is fairly familiar to World War II students, the sections dealing with the later years of the war and then the post-war collapse of Nationalist China and Chennault's efforts to ward off the communist takeover of the country are far less well-known. Chennault comes across as a real man, a dynamo built on a very human frame. Mary Byrd has written an excellent biography, one that is frustratingly repetitive at times simply because the same frustrations kept happening over and over again to its subject. ( ) no reviews | add a review
A balanced, well-documented portrait of a brave and controversial airman who commanded a training air force for Nationalist China. Born in rural Louisiana in 1893, Claire Lee Chennault worked as a teacher before joining the army and becoming a commissioned officer. Although he was initially rejected for flight school, he continued to apply and was finally accepted in 1918. He eventually became the lead pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps' precision flying team. During this time, Chennault developed air-to-air combat techniques that he believed should play a decisive role in warfare. However, his opinion contradicted the official Air Corps policy that military aircraft be used primarily for strategic bombing. Chennault's frustration and dissatisfaction with this stance was so great that when Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek offered him the opportunity to lead advanced fighter pilot training in China, he quickly left the American military and accepted the position in 1937. There he played a key role in the formation of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), popularly known as "the Flying Tigers." The aviators of the Flying Tigers fought against Japan on behalf of China before and during World War II. Early war newsreels showing them defending Burma mythologized the fighter pilots, and Chennault became a romantic hero to the American public. In 1942, the AVG was deactivated and Chennault returned to active duty with the Air Corps, but his disregard for traditional military procedure earned him many enemies among his peers and superiors and he eventually retired. This book was originally published in hardcover in 1987 by The University of Alabama Press. It was hailed as the best of several biographies of Chennault. Reference and Research Book News stated, "This book is of far better quality than the others previously released. The research employed by the author and the depth of detail give the reader an accurate picture of this controversial and charismatic man." No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)358.4Social sciences Public Administration, Military Science Air forces and other advanced weaponry Air ForcesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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