World Battlefronts: When a Hawk Smiles

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When the U.S.A.A.F. in China was in its infancy, Chennault personally conducted operations from the ground, throwing flights into the air at the exact time and place for perfect interception of Jap forces. With more bombers and fighters now, he concentrates on overall tactics, shifting his planes in a pattern as intricate as a ballet. The Japanese, hitting back from their Formosa, Hankow, Canton and Indo-China bases, have learned much from their two years of combat with Chennault.

They parry with similar dexterity. Both sides move a limited number swiftly about, trying to penetrate undefended bases, catch unprotected bombers and smother the antagonist with a temporary superiority of numbers. It is a fluid, unrelenting game, fought with courage and skill.

A complete master of mobility, Chennault ducks and weaves with his air force until he gets at least equality in numbers in a given area, and then throws everything he has at the Japs. He stays awake nights planning new tactics, or studying combat reports to search for Jap weaknesses. The next morning he will be at his well-worn maps, talking about what he could do here & there if he had a few more planes.

After six years in China, Chennault is as American as a baseball bat. With eyes narrowed and cheeks twitching, he can discuss the quickest way to kill in battle and the next moment, leaning back in his chair and puffing contentedly on his pipe, tell of his longing to return to Louisiana and shoot ducks. He talks incessantly about his family of eight children, is openly proud of the fact that five of his six boys are in service. His ever-present companion is a dachshund, Joe, a veteran of the China air lanes. He likes to dig in his garden, pitch for the headquarters' softball team. His indoor game: poker.

The Fourteenth has grown in the past six months. Where Chennault once had a few score planes, he now has a few—a very few—hundreds. His force includes four-engined, long-range B-24 bombers, P-38 fighters. By the standards of more prosperous theaters, its facilities are few and primitive. But major bases have been leveled, graded and embellished with revetments and repair shops—in view of supply difficulties, a miraculous achievement. Personnel is well housed, clothed, fed. No longer does Chennault himself operate from mud-and-bamboo headquarters, but from a spic-&-span, map-covered, easy-chaired, well-carpeted office in the heart of a new compound.

No longer does he doze in the sun, waiting for his bombers' return and planning where next to hit the Japs. Most of the administrative detail is in the hands of neat-minded, hard-working Brigadier General Edgar Glenn, Chief of Staff, an old friend who once (in 1922) served with Lieut. Chennault under one Major Spaatz, now Lieut. General "Tooey" Spaatz of the Mediterranean.

Chennault has lavished great personal affection and care upon a group of key young men: Colonel Clinton ("Casey") Vincent, 29, commander of the forward echelon; David L. ("Tex&") Hill, formerly an A.V.G. ace, now a lieutenant colonel, commander of the forward fighters; Lieut.

Colonel Morris F. Taber, 30, commander of the destructive front-line medium bombers which eat away at enemy shipping.