The Flying Tigers. Landmark Books Series No. 105

by John Toland

Book Overview

During World War II, a group of American fighter pilots roamed the skies over China and Burma, menacing the Japanese war effort without letup. Flamboyant, daring, and courageous, they were called the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B002ANF546
• Release Date: January 1963
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A great little hardback

'The Flying Tigers' is one of the first history books I have ever had and really enjoyed. The idea of a group of volunteers fighting the Japanese fighters and bombers with their P-40s was amazing to me. Not many history classes in high school or even college touched on the subject. If you enjoyed this book, I would also read 'Red Tails Black Wings' by John B. Holway. Did you know when the Red Tails got their new P-40s, the man who helped them learn how to handle the aircraft was a veteran pilot from the Flying Tigers, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Cochran?

A tale of Americans volunteering to go abroad and fight

I still have my copy of Landmark Books #105, "The Flying Tigers" by John Toland, who is known primarily for his work on the attack on Pearl Harbor. The cover is barely being held together by tape but the book is still readable. After all, this is the book that has been in my possession longer than any other and I can still remember making a point to read it at least once a year. John Toland's book celebrates the legacy of the American Volunteer Group in China, but it also paints a heroic picture of the group's leader, Claire Lee Chennault.Part of the attraction was the cover painting of the P40B-Tomahawk flying low over the tops of the palm trees, its shark teeth emblazoned on the engine cowl. It was, to be sure, a hot looking plane (remember, this book was written in 1963), and the book was "Illustrated with photographs" so you did not have to endure page after page of text. Besides, at the time my father was stationed at McGuire A.F.B. in New Jersey and we lived on a street named for Chennault. But when I reread the book now I realize there are other things to be appreciated.First, although written for young adults, it does not water down its subject matter. Toland discusses the political situation wherein young Americans went to China to volunteer and/or be hired long and fight the Japanese long before Pearl Harbor. Perhaps more surprisingly, Toland gets into the strategic and tactical importance of what Chennault and his fliers were doing. Most books in this Random House series tended to relate what happened without going too much into detailed explanations. Second, it captures a time very much different from today, when American military intervention and public acceptance are invariably tied to whether or not the lives of the public at home are being affected. The idea of young American men wanting to travel halfway around the world to fight in war just because the other side represented tyranny is totally foreign to us today. Perhaps one of the legacies of the generation that fought World War II is that their efforts will never be duplicated because not only their situation was so different than where the world finds itself today, but that their passion and commitment to such abstract ideals as life and liberty has all but perished. Who else, besides family and friends, would we be willing to lay down our lives for? This book serves as a tribute to those who answered differently at a time when the world most needed them.