China Air Task Force: Replaced the American Volunteer Group

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Chennault returned to active duty in the USAAF on April 15, 1942. He was promoted eight days later, on April 23, from colonel to brigadier general. Chennault was told that he would have to be satisfied to command a ‘China Air Task Force’ of fighters and bombers. Its mission was to defend the air supply route over the Himalayan mountains between India and China–called the ‘Hump’–and to provide air support for Chinese ground forces. The task force would operate as part of the Tenth Air Force, stationed in India, which would control supplies, personnel and operations. Bissell, also newly promoted to brigadier general–senior to Chennault by one day–would command all American air units in China. Chennault would be a deputy commander, subject to Bissell’s orders.

The Flying Tigers’ war ended on July 4, 1942, and the China Air Task Force’s war began. Chennault had received little help from the U.S. Army in putting together the CATF. The Army supplied only a dozen green pilots, plus 20 clerks and mechanics. ‘Everything else…was AVG equipment bought and paid for by the Chinese,’ Chennault remembered. ‘The Army provided no fighter planes, no trucks, no jeeps, no radios, no administrative or maintenance equipment, not even an extra pair of uniform pants or an experienced group commander.’

The CATF had 51 fighters in July 1942–31 81A-1 and P-40C Tomahawks, and 20 P-40E Kittyhawks. Only 29 were flyable. The 81A-1s and P-40Cs were from the original 100 fighters China had purchased for use by the Flying Tigers; the P-40Es had been flown from India to China in May 1942. Both fighters were good medium-altitude day fighters, with their best performance between 15,000 and 18,000 feet, and they were excellent ground-strafing aircraft. Chennault also had seven B-25C Mitchell medium bombers, which came from India.

The American Volunteer Group became the 23rd Fighter Group. The three original Flying Tiger pursuit squadrons–1st (Adam and Eve, ‘the first pursuit’), 2nd (Panda Bears) and 3rd (Hell’s Angels)–became the 74th, 75th and 76th Fighter squadrons. A fourth fighter squadron for the 23rd Group was obtained by subterfuge. In June and July 1942, Chennault got the Tenth Air Force in India to transfer the 16th Fighter Squadron, commanded by Major John Alison, to his main base in Kunming, China, to gain combat experience. When the last 16th Squadron Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawks arrived in Kunming in July 1942, Chennault took them into the CATF–and never returned them.

Robert Neale, senior AVG squadron leader, commanded the 23rd Fighter Group until July 19, 1942, when he was replaced by Colonel Robert Lee Scott, Jr. Before taking command of the 23rd Group, Scott had borrowed a P-40E from Chennault in April 1942 and had flown missions against the Japanese. ‘Scott’s enthusiasm and good humor appealed to us all,’ James Howard, an AVG and CATF veteran, wrote.

The 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron, consisting of the seven B-25s flown in from India, made up the other half of Chennault’s command. ‘After a bad beginning,’ Chennault wrote, ‘The 11th Bomb Squadron became the spearhead of the China air offensive.’ Colonel Caleb V. Haynes, an experienced bomber pilot who Chennault said ‘looked like a gorilla but flew like an angel,’ commanded the CATF’s bombers.

With only a handful of fighters and bombers, the CATF faced a force of 350 to 450 Japanese army aircraft, deployed along a 2,000-mile front from occupied China through Indochina to Burma. While Chennault’s pilots used P-40s as their principal fighter aircraft, the Japanese came out with one new fighter type each year. Those included the Nakajima Ki.43 ‘Oscar’–which the Americans invariably misidentified as the Japanese navy’s more famous Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero–and the twin-engine Kawasaki Ki.45 ‘Nick.’ ‘The Japanese had so many aircraft,’ author Martin Caidin wrote, ‘that the complement of fighters and bombers at a single Japanese base exceeded all the planes in the China Air Task Force.’

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Aerial Combat, Airborne Operations, Aviation History, Historical Conflicts, World War II