Late in 1941, three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a group of young men left San Francisco in several Dutch ships bound for the Far East. They told fellow passengers they were businessmen or teachers, and some, like Gregory Boyington, were instructed to say they were clergymen. Actually they were American pilots from the Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marines, on their way to China, to become part of a flying foreign legion called the American Volunteer Group (AVG). China had been at war with Japan for almost four years, and from the beginning, Japanese war planes had been able to bomb and strafe helpless Chinese cities at will. Finally, in desperation, China asked a retired Air Corps captain, Claire Chennault, to form a Chinese air force. Chennault probably understood the value of fighter planes as well as anyone else in the world. He believed that the fighter was the key to air power. Without such fighters, the air could not be controlled, and bombers would be at the mercy of the enemy. This was at a time when more and more air officers were beginning to believe that an armed bomber could take care of itself. The Flying Tigers
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While some were ex "Army Air Corps" pilots, the Air Corps became the Army Air Force in April of 1941 - no US Army Air Corps in WWII
