[Oldpilot]

Chennault was a very single-minded individual, and when he had an idea he didn't easily let go of it.

His first irregular outfit of course was the 14th Squadron, often called the International Squadron, of the Chinese Air Force. Then he was put on the shelf in 1938 when the Russians went into China in force. Chiang brought him back in 1940 and he drew up plans for a 500-plane Special Air Unit. As refined in Washington in the winter of 1940-1941 it would consist of the 1st AVG (the fighter force that actually went to Burma), 2nd AVG (the bomber force planned for December 1941 that Alan Armstrong makes so much of), and the 3rd AVG (another fighter group, armed with P-43s and P-66s, poor sods) that never got off the ground.

In November 1941 there were also plans afoot for a volunteer British Commonwealth Bufflo squadron and perhaps a Blenheim bomber squadron, which would have been transferred to Chinese control from RAF squadrons in the region. This appears to have been a Roosevelt to Churchill to the RAF operation, and I'm sure it was greeted with great unhappiness by Brooke-Popham in Singapore.

Once war broke out, the USAAF took over from these volunteer outfits, though with agonizing slowness. It seemed to take from six months to a year from the decision to the implementation.

Postwar, Chennault created Civil Air Transport as a transport company in China, with many American pilots. It retreated to Taiwan with Chiang in 1949, and in the 1950s was a hired carrier for the USAF in Korea and for the French in Indochina. By this time the CIA had a financial interest in it, but it wasn't until Chennault retired that "the company" took over in earnest and renamed the airline Air America.

Chennault also had plans for an International Volunteer Force equipped with F-84 Thunderjets to fight communism in Vietnam and elsewhere as needed. That was in the Eisenhower administration, and the IVF was promptly shot down by the Pentagon.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford