Secondary sources
Anonymous. "Chinese Mushrooms: Hunter's Seven-year Crop Poison to Japs." Curtiss Flyleaf, Sep-Oct 1942. CAMCO factory at Loiwing.Armstrong, Alan. Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor A "what if?" book that takes off from the 2nd AVG bomber group, which, the author argues, might have headed off the Pearl Harbor attack. Available at Amazon.
Bergen, Bob. "The Lady and the Tigers." World War II, May 2002. Interview with Red Foster Petach, AVG nurse.
Britain. Air Ministry. Wings of the Phoenix. London: HMSO, 1949. A British view.
Brooke-Popham, Robert. "Operations in the Far East." Supp. London Gazette 20 Jan 1948.
Brown, Joseph. "Will the Real Flying Faker Please Stand Up?" Argosy, Sep 1963. Saga of an AVG pilot who wasn't the individual he claimed to be.
Byrd, Martha. Chennault: Giving Wings to the Tiger. Univ. of Alabama Press, 1987. The definitive biography of Chennault. Available at Amazon. Available at Historic Aviation.
Chennault, Anna. The Education of Anna. New York: New York
Times Books, 1980.
---. A Thousand Springs. New York: Eriksson, 1962.
Clements, Terrill. American Volunteer Group Colours & Markings. London: Osprey, 2001. The last word (maybe) on how those "sharks" were decorated, in another of those handsome paperbacks from Osprey. Available at Amazon. Available at Historic Aviation.
Dunn, Richard. "Double Lucky? The Campaigns of the 77th Hiko Sentai" in the Annals of the Flying Tigers. Detailed combat history based mostly on Japanese sources. The 77th was the AVG's most frequent adversary in Burma.
----. "Nakajima Type 1 Model 1 Army Fighter (Ki 43-I) Armament--A Reassessment" in the Annals of the Flying Tigers.
Fei Hu: Story of the Flying Tigers. Video. Santa Barbara: Fei-Hu Films, 1999. The best yet. Available at Amazon. Available at Historic Aviation.
Fischer, John. "Th Easy Chair: War as Theater of the Absurd" in Harper's Magazine, March 1970, pp. 18+. Argues (without evidence) that the AVG acquired victories from the RAF.
Ford, Daniel.
Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers,1941-1942. New York:
HarperCollins | Smithsonian Books, 2007. The definitive history, revised
and updated.
Pre-order from Amazon
---. Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991 (seventh edition, paperback, 2001). Second-hand copies available from Amazon.com.
---. "Annals of the Flying Tigers". AVG files and images.
14th Air Force Assoc. Chennault's Flying Tigers. Silver Bay, Wisc.: 14th Air Force Assoc., 1982.
Gamble, Bruce. Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington. Novato CA: Presidio, 2000. A superlative biography of a pilot who was a Flying Tiger before he became a Black Sheep. Available at Amazon.
Hata, Ikuhiko, et al. Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and Their Aces, 1931 to 1945. London: Grub Street, 2002. A short history of the JAAF campaigns, details of each JAAF fighter squadron, biographies of the aces, and a list of fighter pilots lost in the war. The basis of much work that has been done in this field, from Shores's Bloody Shambles to my own Flying Tigers. Available at Amazon.
Hotz, Robert. With General Chennault. New York: Coward McCann, 1943. This is where most of the Flying Tiger legends began--the book we read as kids.
Izawa, Yasuho. "64th Flying Sentai." Aero Album, Summer 1970, Fall 1971. Also published in Air Classics July, August, and September? 1972. The 64th was the Japanese army's most famous fighter group and met the AVG on several occasions. Good English-language account from the Japanese side. Also see Hata, above.
Klinkowitz, Jerome. With the Tigers Over China, 1941-1942. University Press of Kentucky, 1999. A historian reviews the AVG literature. Amazing that nobody ever thought to do this before! Available at Amazon.
Leary, William. "Assessing the Japanese Threat." Aerospace Historian, Winter 1987. Sets the record straight on what the American services knew about Japanese aircraft in 1941, and who provided the information.
Mikesh, Robert. Japanese Aircraft Equipment, 1940-1945. Atglen PA: Schiffer Military History, 2004. All about guns, radios, sights, etc. Available at Historic Aviation.
Nalty, Bernard. Tigers Over Asia. New York: Elsevier-Dutton, 1978. The best of the Flying Tiger romances.
Olynyk, Frank. AVG and USAAF (China-Burma-India Theater)
Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft in Air-to-Air
Combat, World War 2. Aurora, Ohio: privately printed, 1986.
Peissel, Michel. Tiger for Breakfast: The Story of Boris of
Kathmandu. New York: Dutton 1966. Early published reference to
the Tigers' supposed purchase of victory credits from the RAF.
Pistole, Larry.
Pictorial History of the Flying Tigers. Orange VA: Moss
Publications, 1981; Publisher's Press, 1995. Great collection of photos
and reproductions. Available at Amazon.
Rosholt, Malcolm. Days of the Ching Pao: A Photographic Record of the Flying Tigers.
U.S. air units in China, 1941-1945. Many photos.
Large format, 192 pp.
Sakaida, Henry. Japanese
Army Air Force Aces, 1937-45. London: Osprey (distributed in U.S. by Specialty
Book Marketing), 1997. The best thing available in English on the
JAAF. Available at Amazon.
Samson, Jack. Chennault. New York: Doubleday, 1987.
Republished as
The Flying Tiger: The True Story of General Claire Chennault and the U.S. 14th Air Force in China
and available at Amazon.
Schaller, Michael. "American Air Strategy in China, 1939-1941:
The Origins of Clandestine Air Warfare," American Quarterly,
Vol. 28, No. 1. (Spring, 1976). Preliminary argument for the book below.
Schrader, Richard. "The Strange Case of the Missing Tiger," Air
Classics, October 1994. Haphazard account of the loss and probable
capture of Arnold Shamblin.
Schultz, Duane. The Maverick War. New York: St. Martin's, 1987.
The most recent of the Flying Tiger romances.
Seagrave, Sterling. Soldiers of Fortune. Alexandria: Time-Life,
1981. Son of "Burma surgeon," he loathes Chiang, Chennault, and
the AVG.
Shores, Christopher, et al.
Bloody Shambles. London:
Grub Street, 1992, 1993 (two volumes). A meticulous reconstruction
of air combat in the western Pacific in 1941-42. Describes many of
the battles in which the AVG was engaged, from a British perspective.
Available at Amazon.
Stevenson, Donald. "Air Operations in Burma." Supp.
London Gazette 11 Mar 1948.
Strauss, Ulrich. The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World
War II. University of Washington Press, 2003.
Wavell, Archibald (also Harold Alexander and T. J. Hutton). "Operations
in Burma." Supp.
London Gazette 5 Mar 1948.
The War Illustrated. "Their Tomahawks 'Scalped' the Japs Over
Burma." Vol 5 No 122, 28 Feb 1942. Photo page.
Tuchman, Barbara. Stilwell and the American Experience in China.
New York: Macmillan, 1977.
Tullis, Thomas. Tigers
Over China: Camouflage, Markings, and Squadron Insignia of the
American Volunteer Group's Aircraft in China, 1941-42. Eagle Files
No. 4. Hamilton MT: Eagle Editions, 2000. Color and black-white photos,
splendid color three-views and sides views of AVG aircraft. The text
is thin and out of date.
Urbanowicz, Witold. Latajace Tygrysy ("Flying Tigers"). Earlier published as Ogien nad Chinami
("Fire Over China"). In Polish, place and publisher unknown, 1983. (Thanks
to Wojtek Gorski.)
Wagner, Ray. Prelude to Pearl Harbor: The Air War in China,
1937-1941 San Diego Aerospace Museum, 1991.
Whelan, Russell. The Flying Tigers. New York: Viking, 1942.
The first of the Flying Tiger romances. Many quotes (some edited) from
George Burgard's diary.
White, Theodore. In Search of History. New York: Harper, 1978.
Whitney, Daniel.
Vee's for Victory!: The Story of the Allison V-1710 Aircraft engine, 1929-1948.
Atglen PA: Schiffer, 1998. Available at Historic Aviation.
-----. The U.S. Crusade in China. Columbia Univ.
Press, 1979. How the AVG came to be.
---. The Soong Dynasty. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
----. Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and Their Aces: see Hata, above.
---. "What Odds They Faced in Burma's Sky!" Vol 5 No 128, 15 May 1942.
Photo page including an IAF pilot with a painting of the
"Tiger of Konkan" on his Lysander.
--- & Anna Lee Jacoby.
Thunder Out of China
(available at Amazon). New York: Sloane, 1946.


Autographed photo
P-40B kit