Chennault : giving wings to the tiger

469 Pages·1987·12.438 MB·English

by  Martha Byrd

CH E
MAR T HA BYRD
NAULT
Giving Wings to the Tiger
The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa and London
Copyright © 1987
by The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Frontispiece: Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault. Official U.S. Army Air
Forces Photo, courtesy Rosemary Simrall.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Byrd, Martha, 1930-
Chennault : giving wings to the tiger.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Chennault, Claire Lee, 1890-1958. 2. Generals—United States—Biography. 3.
United Slates. Army Air Forces—Biography. I. Title.
UG626.2.C48B97 1987 358.4'i332'0924 [B] 86-19238
ISBN 0-8173-0322-7 (alk. paper)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.
For J.A.R.

Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xv
Prologue i
1 The Shaping of the Man 4
2 The Lean Years 18
3 Growth, Conflict, Controversy 36
4 "I always thought the air was unlimited” 48
5 The Great Adventure 65
6 China Crossroads 89
7 Birth of an Idea 104
8 Flying Tigers 123
9 The Inevitable End 137
10 The China Air Task Force 153
11 A Clash of Purpose 172
12 A Clash of Personality 185
13 ‘‘It looks like one hell of a mess” 207
14 "The situation here in China is appalling” 221
15 “We are holding the sack” 238
16 ‘‘It is going to work out all right” 258
17 “Nobody can hurt you except you yourself’ 275
18 CAT and the Civil War 284
19 Cold Warrior 307
20 Full Circle 329
21 Reconciliation 351
Notes 368
Bibliography 424
Index 441
Illustrations
Claire Lee Chennault frontispiece
Jessie Lee and John S. Chennault 6
William and Claire Chennault 8
Claire Chennault, 1911 16
Chennault at Fort Benjamin Harrison 20
Nell Thompson Chennault in 1918 22
Nell Chennault, with Peggy and Charles 22
Claire Lee Chennault, 1918 22
“Grandma” before Her First Flight 26
The Flying Trapeze 42
Chennault in Flight, 1937 70
Chennault with Interpreter, 1937 70
An AVG P-40, 1942 136
Chennault with Nelson, His Half Brother 189
News Conference, 1943 197
Major General Chennault 209
Chiang Kai-shek with Chennault 229
CAT Comes into Being, 1946 296
Flying Breeding Stock to Remote Provinces 298
Transporting a Young Elephant 299
Chennault Confers with Flyers 302
Chennault at a CAT Function 303
Chennault, Doug Smith, and Frank Hughes, 1949 320
CNAC and CATC Planes, 1952 336
The First AVG Reunion, 1952 347
Chennault, Anna Chennault, and Thomas G. Corcoran 367
Preface
To write an individual’s life is a joy, a privilege, and a sobering re­
sponsibility. An author seeks the essential essence of the subject,
striving for factual accuracy yet acknowledging that facts alone are
insufficient, that interpretation must be made and judgment, how­
ever tentative, must be rendered. To do otherwise is to deprive the
reader of the insights gained, to try to live by the fiction that history
is distinct from the personalities of those who make it.
Claire Chennault’s career fell into three distinct phases, his role in
each shaped by a character and personality so full of contradictions
that at times there seem to have been two men competing within the
same life for the ascendancy of two different value systems. In un­
canny ways he was torn between the cultures of East and West, at
times personifying the dragon of Western fairytales, warlike, spitting
fire and eating people, only at other times to be more the Chinese
dragon, kindly and peaceful, a gentle vegetarian eating clouds and
spitting mists.
One Claire Chennault cared not a fig for popular opinion or the
consensus of the crowd. He went his own way, fearless, strong, little
concerned for the perquisites of rank, indifferent to criticism. This
IX
PREFACE
X
was a modest and unassuming man, quick to praise and thank and
give credit to others, a man who spoke quiet words of common sense
in soft and reasoning tones. A different Claire Chennault exagger­
ated his achievements, denigrated his opponents, was irascible with
his colleagues, and overreacted to slights, real or imagined. He often
displayed a touching need for approbation, for bolstering and reas­
surance.
He was tender with dogs, children, and the helpless or oppressed.
His love letters expressed a depth of feeling that brings tears to the
eyes. The men under his command saw him as fatherly, protective;
his feelings about them were emotional, compassionate. It was hard
for him to fire individuals who were incompetent, although he de­
manded much of those who were capable. His loyalty to his friends
became as legendary as his hatred for his enemies.
He was also a hard man, a man who was stern with his sons be­
cause he believed they would need to be tough, a man “with a bead
nobody could stare down,” a man who did not flinch at the harsh
realities of a cruel profession.1 His philosophy of war was cold: kill
the bravest first.
The persona he turned to the world was one of dauntless courage,
cheer, humor, and optimism. He was quick to tease or quip and un­
willing to accept obstacles that stood in the way of goals he believed
attainable or desirable. Less often seen were the insecurities, the
wide fluctuations in his emotional outlook that plunged him into
deep depression. As though driven by an insatiable need to overcome
challenge, he tended to hurl himself into a task with tremendous en­
ergy and an awesome intensity, even though he exercised great pa­
tience and understanding for those working with him. If denied a
sense of achievement, however, he sometimes reached the limit of
his control, a point when he could no longer cope with stress or frus­
tration or failure. The diligence with which he sought both physical
activity and outdoor solitude suggests that he understood his own
emotional needs and sought to balance his moods. Exercise, espe­
cially competitive games, served to release his pent-up energies,
while time spent alone in the natural world put his soul at peace with
itself.
He could be earthy and coarse, a physical man of simple, basic
drives. He could be gallant and chivalrous with a naturalness that
bespoke an aristocratic background which he lacked. He also lacked
social experience; in some respects he was a bumpkin and needed
others to make simple arrangements for him. Yet without apology,
Preface xi
he made himself equally at home in the company of heads of state or
airplane mechanics. He seemed to have derived equal pleasure from
an elegant lunch with Madame Chiang Kai-shek and from eating cat­
fish on a Louisiana riverbank. He was ambitious but not for money.
His homes were modest, comfortable but not fine. His daily life was
simple and unpretentious, his tastes plain.
Nor was power for the sake of power the motivating factor in his
life. Power was simply another tool—important, like money, to the
extent that it was necessary to get things done. Far more important
than either power or money were the opportunity to implement his
innovative concepts and the personal gratification of being right.
Chennault needed achievement in the same way he needed air to
breathe.
Chennault was at the cutting edge of the evolution of U.S. policy,
first on the use of air power, later on the formulation of a postwar re­
lationship with Asia. Both times he spoke up, loudly and often tact­
lessly but with conviction and the willingness to take the heat of the
opposition. That in itself is the first measure of a productive citizen,
for the individual who keeps silent can make little contribution. His
was a keen and creative mind, but his formal education was limited.
Independent reading kept him abreast in the technical areas of his
profession but did not give him the broad intellectual perspective
that would have enabled him to function most effectively at the high
decision-making levels where his innovative thinking nevertheless
placed him. The result was a painful personal frustration that some­
times found expression as touchiness or vanity. In the officer corps of
the U.S. Army he never ceased to feel that he was an outsider, hand­
icapped because he lacked the credentials of West Point or a back­
ground—the style and class—that would give him equal standing
with his peers. This sense made it hard for him to accept professional
failure as distinct from personal failure, and instead of working
within the system, he flailed against it, antagonizing people who dis­
agreed with his views and smoldering with misdirected anger at those
who stood between him and the achievements that he felt could and
should be his.
Chennault could lead subordinates more effectively than he could
persuade superiors. When he had to please or convince others, he
seemed not to have basic interpersonal skills, not to understand the
appropriate limits of opposition, not to have sufficient depth to con­
cede that life had tones of gray. In aerial tactics he carried subtlety
to a fine art, but when working with words, he invariably relied on