The China Mirage by James Bradley

Author:James Bradley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Modern / 19th Century, History / Asia / China
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2015-04-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

SECRET EXECUTIVE AIR WAR IN ASIA

Japan can be defeated in China. It can be defeated by an Air Force so small that in other theaters it would be called ridiculous. I am confident that, given real authority in command of such an Air Force, I can cause the collapse of Japan.

—Claire Chennault, letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt1

T. V. Soong’s lobbying efforts in the fall of 1940 were double-barreled. President Roosevelt had come through with more than one hundred million dollars. Now it was time to get Chiang planes and pilots.

Chiang believed that American airpower was the magic barbarian force that would oust the barbarian Japanese from China. An American-supplied and -operated air force held a number of attractions for Chiang, including the fact that it would be fully under his control; he wouldn’t have to deal with managing a patchwork of alliances with local warlords, as he did in the ground war.

Chiang’s idea was to install five hundred planes with pilots at airfields near China’s coast. This armada would first bomb the Japanese military bases in China and their navy ships at sea, then move north to Japan’s home islands to burn down its wooden cities.

Chiang’s dream, however, would be impossible to realize. Effective air war depends first upon secure airfields. Chiang couldn’t hold territory that the Japanese military coveted. If American barbarian planes attacked the Japanese from Chinese territory, the million-soldier-strong Japanese army would simply wipe out the air bases.

Still, dictators have the power and funds to hire sycophants who encourage them in their delusions. For the past three years, Chiang had had a former U.S. Army Air Corps pilot by his side who’d agreed that Japan could be beaten with five hundred airplanes. Chiang paid the American much more than he would have gotten had he stayed in the U.S. military. To avoid State Department complaints that the pilot was a mercenary in Chiang’s employ, Chiang had T. V. Soong pay him as an adviser to the Soong family’s Bank of China. The pilot’s highest rank in the U.S. military had been captain. When he went to work for the Soong-Chiang syndicate, he started referring to himself as colonel. The Generalissimo had hired mercenaries from many countries, but this American was Chiang’s favorite air strategist, a man who, like himself, ignored logistics and military reality. His name was Claire Chennault.

In 1937, forty-three-year-old Captain Claire Chennault realized that his U.S. Army Air Corps career would soon be over. Long at odds with the top USAAC brass, who criticized him for poor strategic and leadership skills, Chennault saw the writing on the wall. The Army wanted him out. This realization hit Chennault hard, and he was hospitalized for what might have been a nervous breakdown.

While still on active duty, Captain Chennault inquired if Chiang Kai-shek could use a mercenary for hire. Chiang viewed him as a U.S. military officer in good standing and had little idea that he was being squeezed out. Chiang made an offer. Chennault recalled:

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