Ceremony on 5th anniversary of photo exhibit wall about Flying Tigers held in Los Angeles of US
By Zhang Shuo
LOS ANGELES, US, March 20 -- An event commemorating the 5th anniversary of the photo exhibition wall honoring the Flying Tigers was held in Los Angeles, US, on March 18.
In 1941, the First American Volunteer Group (AVG), nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was formed under the leadership of late US Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault to help Chinese fight against the invading Japanese troops during the World War II....
Hundreds of people from China and the US attended the ceremony, including officials from Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, US Congresswoman Judy May Chu, Mrs. Nell Calloway, the granddaughter of Chennault, and Mel McMullen, a US Flying Tigers veteran. The event aimed to help people understand the history and pass on the friendship between China and the US from generation to generation.
This is a hilarious upending of General Chennault's attitude toward Communist China. He was so devoted to Madame Chiang, the Generalissimo, and the Nationalist government that he returned in 1946 to build Civil Air Transport as a paramilitary airline supporting them against Mao Zedong's Communist forces. He even wanted to recruit American airmen to fight in China -- a new AVG!
When Chiang and the Nationalists lost the civil war in 1949, Chennault retreated with them to Taiwan. There, CAT became a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency, flying supplies into the besieged French outpost at Dienbienphu. A year later, when North Korea invaded the South, CAT aided the UN forces, even to dropping clandestine agents into China in hopes of destabilizing the Bejing government that was supporting North Korea. After Chennault died in 1958, CAT became Air America, whose gray spook planes were active in the Vietnam War until the Saigon government collapsed. The airline was dissolved in 1976.
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