#theflyingtigers

Lt. General Claire Lee Chennault - 🐯 "The Flying Tiger" 🐯 - Special Limited Edition

Lt. General Claire Lee Chennault was the commander of the 1st American Volunteer Group (nicknamed) Flying Tigers. Based primarily out of Rangoon, Burma, and Kunming, Yunnan, Chennault's unit - better known as the legendary 'Flying ‘Tigers' - fought the Japanese for seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Chennault's three squadrons used Curtiss P-hOs fighter planes whose mission was to guard the Burma Road, Rangoon, and other strategic locations in Southeast Asia and western China against Japanese forces. Chennault headed both the volunteer group and the 23rd Fighter Group that replaced it in 19112. He was later promoted to Major General, commanding the 14th Air Force. This is our replica of his jacket which is currently on display in the Air and Space Museum in Washington Dc.

Claire Lee Chennault (September 6, 1893 – July 27, 1958) was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Republic of China Air Force in World War II. Chennault was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fighter-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment.

Chennault retired  from the United States Army in 1937, and went to work as an aviation  adviser and trainer in China. Starting in early 1941, Chennault  commanded the 1st American Volunteer Group (nicknamed Flying Tigers). One mission which never came to fruition was the bombing of Japanese  cities; the bombers did not arrive before Pearl Harbor. (B-29's started  bombing from China in 1944, but they were not under Chennault's  command.) He headed both the volunteer group and the uniformed U.S. Air  Force units that replaced it in 1942.

He feuded constantly with General Joseph Stilwell, the U.S. Army commander in China, and helped China's leader Chiang Kai-shek  to convince President Roosevelt to remove Stilwell in 1944.

The China-Burma-India theater was strategically essential in order to fix   many vital elements of the Imperial Japanese Army on the Chinese   mainland to limit their use against Allied forces advancing towards   Japan in the two Pacific campaigns.