CNAC and the Flying Tigers… and that’s the American Volunteer Group, the real Flying Tigers, not just any old US Army Air Corps pilot who served in China during World War II.
(Ask any member of the AVG — they’ll set you straight, and right quick).
CNAC was desperately short of pilots in the summer of 1942, just as it was expanding operations to prove that an airlift over the eastern Himalayas, the daunting “Hump,” was possible. When Claire Chennault’s AVG disbanded on July 4, 1942, 16 AVG pilots signed on with CNAC and flew the Hump for the remainder of the war.
For years after the war, the two organizations conducted joint annual reunions at the Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, California… and if the stories are to be believed, they were outrageous bacchanalias.
Posted above is the cover of their 1962 reunion booklet.
Next, I’ll explain why you’re connecting to CNAC & the Hump every time you send a package via Fedex…
Hi Greg, By any chance, are you related to “Archie Crouch”? He was with my dad in China shortly after dad retired from being a flight surgeon for CNAC in Calcutta, 1943-1944. As I recall Archie was perhaps a CNAC pilot?
Greg,
I had dinner last night with a distant cousin (Actually she’s two generations before me and just a few years older!) She and her husband belong to the Society of Aviation History in San Francisco. Would you be willing to speak at their club about “China Wings?”
Absolutely, Don! I’d love to. Would you be willing to have them get in touch with me? Cheers, Greg