Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight Series)

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Summary: who were the flying tigers?
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That question is answered to the joy and satisfaction of every real fan of the flying tigers!!Mr.Ford writes an un bias account of those brave young men of the greatest generation!From the first page you will be hooked on this book!
I thought I knew the story of the flying tigers....by the time I finished reading chapter four,I realized I was just getting to know the real story of the flying tigers!!
If you want to know what these brave men did with so little equipment,re-supplies and replacements....you need to read this book!
never were Mr.Churchill's words so true.
"....so much owed by so many to so few..."


WILL A. NUGENT

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Summary: The book for you!
Review: " There were... Jap planes all over the sky. I tried to shoot them all down my self, but on got two in a full hour of fighting. It was a scrmble. ....[John] Farell got a bullet through his canopy and i got one through my wing taking out my right tire. Some fun"
This is a passage from Daniel Ford's book the "Flying Tigers". It was a great AVG (American Voluenteer Groupe) book. It captures some of the emotion of a volunteer fighter pilot in China during World War II. Clair Chenalt a famous stunt pilot and a World War I fighter pilot is recruiting " Ace Pilots" to form an airforce for china during World War 2. It is a great book and it would be a good book to add to your collection(If you have one). I recomend it to any airforce historian looking for an exciting new book!!!

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Summary: Essential!
Review: Briefly, I share the enthusiasm of prior reviewers for this book.

Without repeating them, I'd say what's most important about Ford's work is his weaving in information from the Japanese side, rare in any book on the Pacific war. And it's a delight for those of us who want good history as well as good reading. For instance, air battles are matched unit vs. unit and sometimes pilot vs. pilot.

Along the way, misinformation from prior writings on the AVG is settled. However, at least one prominent AVG veteran attacked the book and Ford himself in a number of magazine articles. But in my reading of this volume, I found no disrespect for the accomplishments of the original Flying Tigers.

This book is essential for understanding the 1941-42 CBI campaign and the AVG. More on this is in other reviews.

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Summary: The book for you!
Review: Daniel Ford has done something that took more than a little moral courage. The American Volunteer Group, aka "The Flying Tigers," have acquired mythic status in the annals of American arms. Ford has gone back to the roots of the myth, to what actually happened; and written a compelling, if at times tedious, history of the Flying Tigers.

He has done an excellent job of placing them in the context of their times. He interviewed a number of surviving Tigers, including the lesser lights of the Group, and told the truth with at best only a little varnish. He provides the specifications of the aircraft used by both sides over China and Burma, and precisely details who was stationed where, when and with how many aircraft of what types, on both sides.

He gives a good look at the interactions between Chennault, Chiang, Madame Chiang, Stilwell and Bissell; and their patrons and enemies back in Washington. How the assorted feuds amongst the principals and their patrons affected the war in the air and on the ground has never been analyzed in quite this way before. One thing I like was that Ford presents the facts as he unearthed them, and leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions as to how things went wrong and what could have been done differently, and who could have done them differently.

Ford brings the myths crashing down in flames. But he then erects a new monument to a group of heroes, some of them reluctant and all with feet of clay, who did the impossible for the ungrateful with almost nothing at all. The reader will, I think, take away an even greater respect for the men (and women) of the American Volunteer Group than he brought to the book before reading.

This one belongs on the bookshelf of all who study World War II and how it brought about the world we live in today.

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Summary: Thoroughly Researched, Compellingly Written
Review: For all its detail and focus on purely factual data, FLYING TIGERS is an exhilarating ride. Its clinical tone is tempered by an impressive amount of insight into the multitudes of personalities involved with the AVG--often including the Japanese perspective. It's a sprawling book, with mountains of information on every page. This could easily have been a ponderous, heavy-handed account by a detached historian; instead, Ford uses effective language to turn the individual stipples of the story into a fascinating, gradated canvas. It's rare to encounter a work of such vividness by an author whose view is from after the fact, rather than from amid the period of history concerned. Recommended.

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Summary: The Real Deal? Not Really
Review: I read Ford's book after my good friend Bob Dorr claimed that the author had "settled for once and for all" the claims that Claire Chennault had shot down Japanese airplanes before the formation of the AVG. While Ford is a good writer and story teller, he discredited all of his points in the final chapter where he admitted that "the Japanese viewpoint" and their "actual losses" were mostly his assumptions based on some incomplete records that were captured by US forces in New Guinea more than a year after the AVG was disbanded. There is too much journalism and not enough solid history in Ford's book. It's a good read for those who are interested in the Flying Tigers but take Ford's claims with a grain of salt.

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Summary: Ok this book is not accurate.
Review: There are many figures and facts in this book that aren't correct. PBS did a special on the Flying Tigers of 1941, spent a lot of $$ doing research and interviewing actual members of the FT. They came up with different numbers than this book... and I am more likely to believe PBS's info integrity. So think twice before you take any of this book to heart, don't base your thesis on it.

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Summary: A first-rate combat history!
Review: This a a great combat history, that treats the Flying Tigers as real men instead of cardboard heroes, and it gives the Japanese side of the story as well. Surprise! The Tigers didn't go into combat before Pearl Harbor. And they never met a Zero in combat.

Not so surprising, it looks like they overclaimed their victories by 150 percent or more, putting the Tigers in the usual range for western pilots in the early years of the war. (The Japanese were even more enthusiastic overclaimers!)

The Tigers pulled a triumph out of a losing campaign, and unlike other Allied air units they regularly out-fought the Nakajima Oscar fighter that was the Japanese Army's version of the Zero. This is a rousing book. Read it!