The famed American Volunteer Group (AVG) created in August 1941, under
the command of Claire Lee Chennault set an example of heroism for the
American public opinion at the onset of the Second World War. This band
of volunteer aviators serving under the Chinese Government tried to stem
the tide of the Japanese onslaught throughout Southeast Asia. Amid chaos
and resounding defeats of the Western powers in the area, the AVG fought
tenaciously against the Japanese. Highly publicised in the US as the
Flying Tigers, the AVG set up the origin and legacy of further United
States clandestine air wars in Asia, and elsewhere in the world in the
coming decades. From that point on, the name of Claire Lee Chennault was
associated with paramilitary and secret air operations on behalf of the
United States Government in Asia. However, if his involvement in China
in late 1930s is well documented, his involvement in various clandestine
air operations after the Second World War is far less well known.
Far from the image of a lonesome maverick often portrayed, Chennault was
right from the start closely in contact with the US intelligence
services and, with the support of the US presidency, developed plans to
wage a secret air war against Japan. After the Second World War, he
returned to China to create the Civil Air Transport (CAT), an airline
originally involved in refugee relief missions but that was soon caught
in the Chinese civil war where CAT was quickly involving in paramilitary
operations, flying troops and supplies to supplement the Chinese
Nationalist Air Force. Despite the dedication of the CAT personnel, the
Nationalists suffered a series of disastrous defeats and the remnants of
their forces withdrew into Taiwan. The near-bankrupt CAT found a
last-minute investor, the newly created US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), which purchased CAT for its clandestine operations in Asia in
this nascent Cold War period. Officially a Taiwanese airline that ran
regular commercial operations, the CIA was also running a discrete
paramilitary department which was engaged in numerous clandestine air
operations until the early 1960s when it was rechristened as Air
America.
This first volume covers the birth of CAT and its involvement in the
Chinese Civil War up to the Nationalist withdrawal to Taiwan.
