The Flying Tigers (1943) By Russell Whelan
 
 It was Christmas Day, 1941, but the thoughts of the America people dwelt not on the glad old memory of Bethlehem but on the shocking facts of the new war in the Pacific and Asia. American soldiers were dying in the wilds of Luzon and Mindanao -- dying in defeat. Pearl Harbour was a taste strong and bitter in every mouth. In Malaya and south-east Asia the Japanese juggernaut rode down all resistance. Along our own West coast, in Alaska, and down at the Canal, ran the rumours and alarms of invasion. It was sickening thing to see Americans doubting their own strength. It was staggering to think that Americans might have sound cause for doubt. on that day there was a kind of panic in the land. Then suddenly, from far across the world, from a place that most Americans knew only as a name in an old Kipling song, came the news of the first shining victory over the forces of Nippon. The Flying Tigers had flown and struck. The Flying Tigers? Who were they? The radio and the newspapers told us happily. They were American boys, from forty-one of our states, fighting pilots trained in our won Army and Navy; and now members of the new Americna Volunteer Group employed by the Government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek to protect the lifeline of China, the Burma Road. On Christmas Day a Japanese aerial armada had headed for Rangoon, the seaport of Burma. There, awaiting transport to China, crowding the wharves and warehouses, were many millions of American dollars' worth of lend-lease supplies and material. The Jap raiders came in bold confidence born of their easy triumphs throughout the Pacific. They came in the knowledge that their enemies had mustered only a skeleton air force for the defence of Burma, an air force of a few dozen planes and men without replacements and with scant supplies of fuel and ammunition. Nevertheless, they came in strength, in two waves, seventy bombers escorted by thirty-eight fighting planes in all, to blast Rangoon out of the war. As the first bombardier studies his sight for the first blow, four little fighting ships raced down out of the sun onto the backs of the invaders. Joined by their fourteen comrades, the defenders raged through the sky, and soon eleven Japanese pursuits and eight bombers had fallen flaming into the rivers and rice fields below. At least nine more crashed before the main Jap force scattered and fled from those strange and terrible fighters of Burma that wore the face of the shark on their noses and the little cartoon figures along their sides. The Flying Tigers went back to their aerodrome near the banyan trees. They had made their bow to history.
 
Hard Cover
216 pages
In Fair Condition- Spine is coming off