[Frank Olynyk]

All claims by the AVG had to be confirmed for the $500 bonus to be paid. Claims made in China were verified by the Chinese, usually, as far as I know, by finding the wreckage. All claims in Burma were verified by the RAF. The evidence for this is in the Chennault Papers in the Hoover Institute on the Stanford University campus, being the letters from AVM (from memory) Stevenson to Chennault. There is no indication in these letters as to how the claims were confirmed. Ground claims in Thailand were confirmed by RAF photo recon. Air claims in Thailand I would have to guess were confirmed by the other pilots on the mission.

With regard to the buying of claims from the British by AVG pilots, I have to consider this to be nonsense. The only cash money received by members of the AVG (air or ground) was their monthly pay, which they received in the currency of the country in which they were based. Bonus payments were made to an account in a New York bank, and there was no way for them to get at the money while overseas.

With regard to "hard bitten mercenaries", I have to say that none of them can be considered "hard bitten". All of the pilots and ground crew were recruited from the active duty US services in the rough period of Spring 1941 to about August. They then had to travel to Rangoon. I don't know when they received their first "pay check"; a fair amount of the financial records are in the Chennault Papers. Certainly none of them had ever acted as a mercenary before joining the AVG.

Frank.