The Story of the Fourteenth Air Force 1945 USAAF (Flying Tigers); World War II (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

The Fourteenth Air Force (Flying Tigers) during World War II in China.

Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Air_Force

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Fourteenth Air Force (14 AF; Air Forces Strategic) was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). It was headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The command was responsible for the organization, training, equipping, command and control, and employment of Air Force space forces to support operational plans and missions for U.S. combatant commanders and their subordinate components and was the Air Force Component to U.S. Strategic Command for space operations.

Established on 5 March 1943 at Kunming, China, 14 AF was a United States Army Air Forces combat air force activated in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of World War II. It primarily fought in China. After World War II Fourteenth Air Force subsequently served Air Defense Command, Continental Air Command, and the Air Force Reserve (AFR).[3]

14 AF was commanded by Major General Stephen N. Whiting. Its Command Chief Master Sergeant was Chief Master Sgt. Patrick F. McMahon.

On 20 December 2019, the USAF's Fourteenth Air Force was redesignated as the United States Space Force's Space Operations Command (SPOC)...

With the United States entry into World War II against the Empire of Japan in December 1941, Claire Chennault, the commander of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) (known as the Flying Tigers) of the Chinese Air Force was called to Chungking, China, on 29 March 1942, for a conference to decide the fate of the AVG. Present at the conference were Chiang Kai-shek; his wife, Madame Chiang Kai-shek; Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, commander of all U.S. forces in the China Burma India Theater; and Colonel Clayton L. Bissell, who had arrived in early March. Bissell was General Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold's choice to command the USAAF's proposed combat organization in China...

Chennault was recalled to active duty in the USAAF on 15 April 1942 in the grade of Major General. Chennault was told that he would have to be satisfied with command a China Air Task Force of fighters and bombers as part of the Tenth Air Force. Its mission was to defend the aerial supply operation over the Himalayan mountains between India and China – nicknamed the Hump – and to provide air support for Chinese ground forces...

The CATF had 51 fighters in July 1942: 31 Curtiss 81A-1 (export Tomahawks) and P-40B Tomahawks, and 20 P-40E Warhawks. Only 29 were flyable. The 81A-1s and P-40Bs were from the original 100 fighters China had purchased for use by the Flying Tigers; the P-40E Warhawks had been flown from India to China in May 1942 as part of the 23rd Fighter Group, attached to the AVG to gain experience and provide continuity to the takeover of operations of the AVG. 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...

The AVG was disbanded on 4 July 1942, simultaneous with the activation of the 23rd FG. Its personnel were offered USAAF commissions but only five of the AVG pilots accepted them. The remainder of the AVG pilots, many disgruntled with Bissell, became civilian transport pilots in China, went back to America into other jobs, or joined or rejoined the other military services and fought elsewhere in the war...

The 23rd Fighter Group with the 74th, 75th and 76th Fighter squadrons, its table of organization rounded out by the transfer of men and P-40s from two squadrons of the 51st Fighter Group in India...

On 19 March 1943, the CATF was disbanded and its units made part of the newly activated Fourteenth Air Force, with Chennault, now a major general, still in command. In the nine months of its existence, the China Air Task Force shot down 149 Japanese planes, plus 85 probables, with a loss of only 16 P-40s. It had flown 65 bombing missions against Japanese targets in China, Burma and Indochina, dropping 311 tons of bombs and losing only one B-25 bomber.

The members of Fourteenth Air Force and the US press adopted the name Flying Tigers for themselves after the AVG's dissolution. Especially the 23d Fighter Group was often called by the same nickname...