Earlier, I blogged about the Civil War ties to Claire Lee Chennault and the Flying Tigers. On 4 July 1942, the Flying Tigers ceased to exist, and the men became the cadre for the China Air Task Force, part of U.S. Tenth Air Force. (In 1943, China Air Task Force became the separate Fourteenth Air Force).

Chennault, now a general, received command of the China Air Task Force. It numbered at most 40 fighters and 7 bombers against 350+ Japanese planes in a battlespace approximating the East Coast of the United States inland to the Mississippi River.

Undaunted by the odds, Chennault reached back into history for inspiration and ideas on how to fight.