By Nina Jobe

The C-47is still painted up with Normandy D-Day white stripes and Buzz Buggy. The hope is to get the decals changed to CBI/CNAC in China - the new CBI/CNAC decals are already aboard for transport. (Barbara Bussler)The Chinese Theater in WWII is most famous for the Flying Tigers, a story that began with the formation of the “American Volunteer Group” or “AVG” in April of 1941, well before Pearl Harbor, under Claire Chennault through secret arrangements authorized by President Roosevelt. Pilots from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were permitted to resign from the military to head to China to train pilots for the Chinese Air Force under Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek. Incentivized by the lure of adventure and/or high pay (approximately three times what they made in the U.S.), the first group arrived in Burma in Nov. of 1941. Once the attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred, their motivation changed to patriotism against Japan.

Japan began their invasion of China in 1931 in the far Northeast section known as Manchuria and grew to full conflict by 1937, marked by the clash at the famous Marco Polo Bridge. Japanese occupation of eastern China left the only route for bringing food and military supplies, etc., to China via the Burma road into Kunming. Once Burma also fell to Japan, the only way left was by air transport from India over the Himalayas known as the “Hump”– initially by C47s (DC3s). China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC), in which Pan Am held a 45 percent ownership, pioneered the routes and was later joined by the U.S. Army Air Forces. This operation was later successfully copied as the pattern for the Berlin airlift.