The Flying Tigers, America's secret army in Burma National Air & Space Museum

This is about a time when everyone agreed that it was called Burma. When Vietnam was Indochina, and Taiwan was Formosa. And with such an unfamiliar map, you’d think this was eons ago, but it was actually just 1941 – so by then we already had jets that could fly across the Pacific Ocean, and these jets already had wings with guns.

Portrait of General Claire Lee Chennault, 1943. Artists: Harry Warnecke & Robert F. Cranston. Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Except General Claire Lee Chennault’s jets. They didn’t have radios, either. In fact, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawks that he acquired lagged so much behind those modern times, that Britain’s Royal Air Force declared them obsolete when it sold him a hundred of them. But as the planes arrived that spring in the city of Rangoon (at least that’s what everyone called it back then), Chennault knew that he had to work with whatever he got.  It was an accomplishment that President Roosevelt granted him permission to build a secret army in the first place – that he was allowed to recruit members of the United States military (and U.S. civilians, too) to be a part of the American Volunteer Group, which was exactly what it sounds like. It was an accomplishment that they didn’t make too much of a fuss that they were officially enlisted as members of the Nationalist Chinese air force. Because this was a time when the world was at war, but the United States wasn’t – yet.

A North Indian painting depicting the Burmese Ambassador, early 19th Century. Watercolor and gold on canvas. Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

The problem was that Chennault’s secret army wasn’t the only one in Burma. Japan was quietly forming one too, and they were promising the people of the nation independence. They were promising relief from British rule, which for all intents and purposes meant a return to a national identity. It had been over a hundred years since Burma became a colony, but one wouldn’t have to travel long to find the towering pagodas that recalled a different age. It wasn’t too distant from collective memory to envision how its dynasties reigned over Southeast Asia alongside the Khmer kingdoms, how their monuments competed with Angkor Wat in magnificence. Burma remembered how it beat back Portugal in 1610, and spent the next two centuries doing the same to Britain, France and China, among others. Burma remembered that it took three Anglo-Burmese wars to take it down and transform it into a colony, and how the British insisted on prescribing Western medication to its sick. It remembered how colonial officers entered temples with their shoes on, and demanded that they be greeted with Shikko – a gesture that was traditionally reserved for elders, monks and the Buddha itself. The Burmese people were ready to be a part of the sea-change that gripped the nations around them.

“Buddhist pagodas and monks, undated.” From
Emma A. Koch’s photograph collection of India, South Asia, and Australia, circa 1862-1885. Collection of the National Anthropological Archives.

View of Strand Road Showing Civic Buildings and Group in Costume, Some in Uniform; Horse-Drawn Carriages and Cart. Collection of the National Anthropological Archives.

United States Army Air Forces China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater Shoulder Sleeve Insignia; shield shaped insignia with blue felt top field with applied silver Nationalist Chinese star and five point American star; red and white embroidered stripes on lower field. Collection of the National Air & Space Museum.

For the United States and Japan, Burma was a strategic jackpot. It was the bridge between China and India, and control over this territory was the difference between winning and losing the Pacific. And even though neither of the two countries or their secret armies were officially part of World War II yet, all of this changed on December 7th when Japan attacked Hawaii, Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kota Bharu.

But by then, Chennault had his brigade, and by then, they were well-trained and known as the Flying Tigers. The P-40’s, once rotting in storage, entered battle less than two weeks after the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Still, there was the issue that the Flying Tigers were fighting on the side of the British. It would take some effort to convince people of the country that they should help a downed American pilot, should one be found and in need. It was here that Chennault, again, worked with what he had.

Gen. Claire Chennault’s United States Army Air Forces Type A-2 Flying Jacket. On display at the National Air & Space Museum.

Gen. Claire Chennault’s blood chit used in the China Burma India Theater, 1941. On display at the National Air & Space Museum.

Blood chits are pieces of cloth that soldiers wore to ask for help in the local language. They had long been used by the British, but were actually an American invention. Among the many maybe-folktales of George Washington is the one where he presented the first-ever blood chit to France’s Jean-Pierre Blanchard, who demonstrated a hot-air balloon, back when those things were still new. Chennault’s version bore the Nationalist China flag and a message in Chinese that read, “This foreign person has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue and protect him.” Several revisions were made, particularly because many locals couldn’t recognize the Chinese flag and characters, and would mistaken the downed pilots as siding with Japan – which was very much defeating the purpose of carrying these around in the first place.

Over time, the blood chits incorporated the American flag and various translations of the message in their designs, were accompanied by phrase-translation books, and sometimes even a drawing of a soldier being aided by a man wearing a coolie hat. Soldiers came to call these survival devices “pointee-talkee” booklets. Clearly, World War II wasn’t the setting for tasteful cultural colloquialisms.

Curtiss P-40E Warhawk. On display at the National Air & Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

For the seven months that they saw action, the Flying Tigers were incredibly effective – which is saying a lot, since they were often greatly outnumbered, not to mention that their wings still didn’t have guns. Chennault employed untraditional practices, eliminating ranking among his fleet. And although the P-40’s weren’t nimble, they were bulky – and didn’t bother to engage in chases that required sharp turns. Instead, with their painted snarling shark-faces, they attacked by diving from above with a force that Japan’s jets couldn’t mimic without falling apart mid-air. At the end of its short career, the Flying Tigers had destroyed almost 300 Japanese planes while only suffering sixteen casualties in battle.

Kyaw Nge and Tun Aung, May 1997, printed 2001. C-print laminated to plexiglass, 35 x 29 in. From Burma: Something Went Wrong and Letter from PLF, by Burmese American photographer Chan Chao. Collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

The Flying Tigers disbanded the next spring with the establishment of the U.S. Air Force, but violence in Burma escalated for years after. The people in Burma – caught amidst a tug-of-war for territory – suffered. As many as 250,000 civilians died over the course of the war, and hundreds of thousands of Burmese today are refugees as a result of the civil wars and political turmoils that ensued.

And for all the accolades and tributes that have been erected to remember the bravery of Chennault’s Flying Tigers, the true story of resilience belongs to those who were of Burma even before the war – before it was considered a strategic land-bridge, or a sanctuary for trade and imperial aspiration. Whether you recognize it as Burma or Myanmar, it is a place that is more than a battleground for American heroes.