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The Flying Tigers
Many US volunteer pilots flew on behalf of Britain, the Soviet Union and China before the United States entered the war. A group of them, equipped with P-40s, went to help the Chinese in their struggle against the Japanese in 1942, where they became known as the 'Flying Tigers' because of their uniquely painted aircraft. This group later became part of the USAAF proper, and P-40s were thereafter used widely in the Pacific.
In the middle of 1941 General Claire Chennault began recruiting for his Volunteer Group--better known as the Flying Tigers--to fight the Japanese from China, for which 100 P40s were ordered for purchase through a loan from the US Government. Ninety aircraft, mostly P-40Bs, were actually delivered, sufficient for three squadrons, plus a few spares. At the time of the USA's entry into the war there were eighty American pilots in the Volunteer Group, and shortly after arriving at Kunming the P-40s drew first blood, six out of ten attacking Japanese bombers being destroyed by two of the AVG squadrons on December 20. There were no American casualties on this occasion, but the third squadron, left behind at Mingaladon, Burma, was less fortunate, and lost two pilots on their first interception, on December 23,1941. The American pilots had underestimated the maneuverability of the lightly built Japanese Zero fighters, and failed to utilize their superior speed and diving ability to advantage. It was soon the cardinal rule that a P-40 should always avoid mixing it individually with a Japanese fighter, owing to the Curtiss machine's inferior climb rate and maneuverability, but the P-40 substantiated a reputation for ruggedness that it was already acquiring with the RAF in the Middle East, and its armor protection saved many AVG pilots in subsequent combat.
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