Word: chennault
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When Major General Claire Chennault, wartime commander of World War II's famed Flying Tigers, decided to start an airline in the Far East in 1946, most professionals gave him about as much chance of survival as a turkey in a typhoon. He had only a few war-weary transports, a handful of his old U.S. fighter pilots and a $1,000,000 loan (at 10% interest) from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which wanted to fly food and medicine into China. But last week, as Chennault's Civil Air Transport got ready to celebrate...
When World War II ended, Dr. Homer V. Bradshaw took off the uniform he had worn as a medical officer with General Claire Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force, returned with his wife to his work at the Presbyterian mission at Lienhsien in China's Kwangtung province. At that time the Bradshaws, medical missionaries in China for 13 years, were 47-strong, healthy, and hopeful that they would be able to go on serving the country they loved. Last week the Bradshaws left China, the latest in the long line of returning missionaries whose pitiable condition told the world...
Died. Brigadier General Clinton Dermott ("Casey") Vincent, 40, operations officer of the Continental Air Defense Command, World War II ace (16 Jap planes), and winner of the Silver Star and D.F.C. for his exploits as General Claire Chennault's operations officer and deputy chief of staff in the China-Burma-India theater; in Colorado Springs. West Pointer Vincent was the prototype of "Vince Casey" in Milton Caniff's comic strip Terry and the Pirates, became (at 29) one of the youngest general officers in Army history...
...Behemoth Creature. Earthquake was Captain James B. McGovern, 32, of Elizabeth, NJ. He flew P-40s and Mustangs over China with Major General Claire Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force, knocked down four Jap planes. When Chennault formed his Civilian Air Transport (CAT) to help the Nationalists against the Red Chinese in China, Earthquake signed up. Once the transport he was flying was attacked by Chinese Communist fighters over the Shantung peninsula, but "they missed," Earthquake explained laconically. Later, flying gasoline to the hard-pressed Nationalists in Kunming, he made a forced landing on a river sandbar in Communist territory...
...months ago, the French asked Chennault for 24 American pilots for the perilous job of flying supplies into Dienbienphu. Earthquake went among the first. The C-119s they flew were on loan from the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. markings barely covered over with one coat of grey paint. The pay was good (about $3,000 a month, including hardship pay and overtime), but if pressed, Earthquake admitted to another reason. "Way I figure it, we either got to fight the bastards at home or fight them over here." When his CAT buddies howled with derisive laughter at the idea...