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 A-4 Skyhawk
A contract “red-air” A-4 Skyhawk on the ramp at Nellis Air Force Base for an exercise.
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Let the Tigers Fly Again

Resurrect the American Volunteer Group in Ukraine.
By Lieutenant Taylor Buck, U.S. Navy
April 2022
Proceedings
Nobody Asked Me, But . . .
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On 20 December 1941, just days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the first American pilots tangled with Japanese bombers over the skies of Kunming, China. Under the leadership of then-Colonel Claire Chennault and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, three squadrons of flyers and maintainers served in the American Volunteer Group (AVG) as a mercenary component of the Chinese Air Force. The famed “Flying Tigers,” originally comprising 100 P-40 Warhawks and 100 pilots, flew combat missions against the Japanese invasion forces in China and Burma from late 1941 to mid-1942 and are credited with 296 enemy aircraft destroyed in slightly more than six months of combat.

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Lieutenant Taylor Buck, U.S. Navy

Lieutenant Buck is a 2016 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He flies the E-2D Hawkeye and has deployed with VAW-125, Forward Deployed Naval Forces–Japan, in support of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

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