The American Volunteer Group will celebrate their 68th anniversary at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport on Wednesday to Sunday, July 1 to 5.
The Flying Tigers were young loyal and dedicated Americans who volunteers to go to China for one year to train the Chinese Air Force as the Japanese were destroying and killing innocent people . The Japanese struck Pearl Harbor and this made a challenge for the group to fight for their country. They were civilians and did not have to stay and fight. They defeated the enemy and saved China.
On May 6, 1942, the powerful vanguard of two invading divisions of the Japanese army reached the narrow floor of the rugged Salween Gorge gateway to Southern China. But, as the Japanese prepared to cross the river on a pontoon bridge, a Curtis P-40E Kittyhawk of the American Volunteer Group, known as the Flying Tigers throughout the world, choked the enemy troops. Three more P-40E followed in quick succession to bomb the Japanese column. The P-40E's were joined by four Tomahawk 'top cover' escorts which streaked into the gorge and added the weight of their machine guns to the slaughter.
For the next four days, the handful of Flying Tigers flew repeated sorties to pound columns of Japanese troops and equipment that were in full retreat, toward the Burmese border. The Battle of the Salween Gorge ranks as one of the most decisive and critical uses of air power to reverse the course of a major ground offensive in the history of aerial warfare, and is remembered as the battle that saved southern China from invasion.
JOE POSHEFKO, VP
AVG Flying Tigers
Natick
