The 23rd Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Force was activated on the Fourth of July 1942 and went into combat against the Japanese immediately. This was more than unusual; it was unique.

There was no gradual assimilation and shakedown of equipment. Neither was there a period of unit training in the states or anywhere else. The 23rd inherited the planes and other material assets of the American Volunteer Group (AVG, or "Flying Tigers") and "hit the ground running".

The 23rd also inherited the most important factor for ensuring early success. The AVG was deactivated the same day as the 23rd’s activation, and about twenty key AVG people volunteered for induction in the U.S. Military as commissioned and noncommissioned officers and to serve in the group. These were pilots, mechanics, armorers, and communicators – all seasoned combat veterans. Three outstanding former leaders were made squadron commanders. Collectively, these men transcended "invaluable"; they were a godsend. 

The positive spirit, hard work, and innovative practices of the Flying Tigers continued undiminished as a hallmark of the new 23rd. These were also godsends, for everyone else – fuel, ammunition, transportation, ground handling equipment, medical supplies, communications systems and equipment, navigation aids and maintenance facilities and supplies – was in short supply. Two of the shortages, communications systems and navigation aids, deserve special mention. The former was plagued by unreliable equipment and weather degradations. The latter was essentially nonexistent, unless you count landmarks such as rivers and a few railroads and inaccurate maps. One of the most astounding aspects of my experience in China, which has seemed ever more miraculous to me as the years have passed, is that we accomplished what we did without greater losses and fewer successes. 

We did have a Chinese manned ground observer net that functioned well for air raid warning purposes, but as a navigation direction-finding system for lost pilots, it was only marginally effective. The original mission of the 23rd Fighter Group was to defend the eastern terminus of the airlift route into China. This meant principally Kunming and a few outlying airfields and facilities in Yunnan Province. Fortunately, instructions did not specify how we were supposed to do that. Accordingly, Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the China Air Task Force and later of the Fourteenth Air Force, adopted a commensurately simple operations policy. He established a threshold of fuel, ammunition, and in-commission aircraft below which his only initial bomber force (the 11th Bomb Squadron with B-25s) would stand down, and the fighter forces would stand defensive ground alert. It worked well, and the threshold was updated periodically.

Offensive operations were well planned and covered a large area. In the beginning we had four good operating bases besides Kunming, one to the west and three to the east. They constituted an excellent matrix from which we could hit targets with significant force in a wide ring stretching from Hankow in the Northeast through the Nanchang rise belt to Canton and Hong Kong in the southeast and to Haiphong, Indo-China (now Vietnam), in the south, thence to air bases in Burma and traffic along the Burma Road. The base structure, wisely used, was a cardinal asset for doing wide-ranging damage to Japanese forces with our small numbers of limited-range aircraft.

Contrary to much that has been reported over the years, additional circumstances were significantly more favorable (or less unfavorable), than commonly believed. We did not live in Waldorf-Astoria style, but we lived quite well. Housing and food were provided by the Chinese, and it was, respectively, adequate and nourishing with few exceptions. To the best of my knowledge, nobody suffered from hunger or malnutrition, and in some cases cooks took special pains to enhance the palatability of their dishes. There was a cook at Lingling for instance who made delicious lemon pies. I do not know how he did it without lemons, but his pies were so good that I stopped there for lunch whenever possible.

Another circumstance that has been exaggerated was the weather. It was not the best in the world but not the worst, either. Thunderstorms, tornadoes, severe icing, and similar phenomena were rare. Conditions in south-central China were predominantly cloudy and rainy and were distinct hazards to navigation without radio aids. But during my seventeen months in the theater I never encountered a thunderstorm or experienced clear wing icing.

The centerpiece of strength, iron will, and unswerving resolve throughout the years of the 23rd Fighter Group activity in China was General Chennault. He was a tactical mentor and genius who had the uncanny penchant for predicting what the Japanese were going to do the next day, the next week, and the next month. He understood their tactics and their regimentation in detail, and he knew where their forces were weak and what course of action they would likely take if we dealt a severe blow to particular targets. Accordingly, the commanders of all his combat forces, which began to grow significantly in 1944, were singularly dependant on his leadership and his sources of intelligence. These sources were undoubtedly extensive, but for obvious reasons, some were probably never revealed to any of us. All in all, he was a revered boss.

Since deactivation in 1946, the group has been reactivated as the 23rd Fighter Wing three times. These ups and downs were keyed to the roller-coaster budget cycles that we live with. The 23rd’s A-10 fighter- bombers did a stellar job in 1991 during operation Desert Storm under the command of Col. David Sawyer, and although the last deactivation occurred thereafter because of large force reductions, the wing was immediately reactivated at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, under Brig. Gen. Bobby Floyd. So the banner lives on! From the Flying Tigers in Burma to the 23rd Fighter Group in China to the 23rd wing in the Persian Gulf, the unit has signified exemplary action in the finest tradition of U. S. military air power.

Bruce K. Holloway      
General, USAF (Ret)      

Reprinted by permission of Carl Molesworth from his history of the 23rd Fighter Group, "Sharks Over China," (Brassey’s, 1994 and 1999).