 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. In the mounting fury of world conflict, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest place. The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific war. Here is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. Tonight's Pacific story from Hollywood in Washington D.C. comes to you as another public service with drama of the past and present and commentary by Colonel C.Y. Liu. Speaking for General Pong Tsumao, director of the Chinese Air Forces in the United States. They came in over the calitide. That means that they should be here in Hangzhou in no time at all. Wang Qingxiu handed me the dispatch. I couldn't believe it. Come on, Mr. Page. We must get out of here before they come. Come. We went out into the street and scanned the skies. Almost no one ran for shelter. All right, sir. All fighting things will take off and fight them, will they not? Yes, I think they will, Wang. Do you think our fighters can stop them, Mr. Page? I didn't know how to answer. The prospect of being bombed was terrifying. No one knew much about it then. We were pretty sure that the Japanese would come in strength. And I knew there were few fighting planes in the Hangzhou area. What do you think, Mr. Page? Well, it's hard to say, Wang. I remember that just four weeks before, as a result of the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge, General Litzimo Chiang Kai-shek had called his generals together at Kuling. And it had been unofficially reported then that China had only about 200 war planes. Most of these were of inferior quality. And I knew that many of these had been up to North China. Which direction do you think they will come from, Mr. Page? They may come from any direction. There. There's a plane. One plane. See it? I squinted upwards to one fighter climbing over the city. Is that one of them? No, Wang. I think that's a Chinese fighting plane. We were to learn later that the pilot of that plane was Chao Ting-fong. Look how high he is flying. Chao Ting-fong was climbing to the clouds, which were very high that day over Hangzhou. Oh, there are two more. No, three more planes. These are Chinese fighting, too, Wang. How many Japanese bombers must they fight? Sonically, I hoped there wouldn't be too many. But I knew the condition of the Chinese Air Force. I'd been in China since 1932 when Colonel John Jeweth, the American, came over as military aviation adviser to China. Japan had just invaded and occupied Manchuria. And it looked fairly certain to the Chinese that they would have to fight. It wasn't time to build a navy, so the Chinese decided to develop an Air Force. Well, Jeweth came over, and all he found that she and Chao, near Hangzhou, was one ramshackle hangar in a field yet to be enlarged and re-equipped. About 200 Chinese who had had some training in flying were turned over to him. He made all of them take a refresher course. And half of the 200 failed. He made pilots of the rest of them and then started from scratch. Training Chinese youngsters to fly who had never even driven an automobile. One of these was Chao Ting Fong. That one plane. That first one has disappeared into the clouds. That was Chao Ting Fong. Look! Big plane! Over there! Over there! Those must be the Japanese. Are those the Japanese bombers, Mr. Page? I think they are. There are six of them. They were not much more than dots. But we could see that they were coming in fairly low. Where are our fighters? Where have they gone? Chao Ting Fong disappeared into the clouds high above. But we did not know what had become of the other Chinese fighters. The Japanese will be over us in another minute. They started to unload their bombs. Look! Look coming down out of the clouds. Down out of the clouds. Down on top of the low flying bombers. Diving like a plummet came Chao Ting Fong. There are the other Chinese fighters coming down on them too. Yes! Look! They are diving right into the Japanese planes. Came down. The machine guns blazing. The Japanese bombers had no escort. One of the Japanese bombers is falling. Look at it! It's falling! It's on fire! It's going down! There goes another one! Chao Ting Fong's bullets ripped into the bombers. They dived on them and zoomed up. In an instant he was diving on them again. Fitting fire. Hit another one! It's coming down! And that one over there too. It's falling! It's falling! I stood there breathlessly. These were some of the young Chinese. Harder more than raw recruits that I'd seen trained. They were getting the baptism of fire. There's only one bomber left! Only one left! Chao Ting Fong dived at it. He's hit it! He's hit it! It's going down! Six bombers shot down and not one of our fighters lost. It became China's Air Force Day. In three days the Chinese pilots fighting against the best the Japanese could send against them knocked down 44 Japanese planes. The Chinese Air Force had established itself as a worthy fighting army. That was the real start, that victory. It inspired the Chinese. They started immediately to develop an Air Force. The Soviets sent them help. Major General Chanel came over as chief advisor on military aviation. Young Wang Qing Tzu went away to prepare himself to be a flyer. I've had two years in the Chinese military cabinet before I came here, Mr. Page. Was that so? Now you're a warrant officer, are you, Wang? Yes, sir. And in six months if I qualify in squadron flying I will be commissioned a second lieutenant. Okay, Wang. Pack the out and join your squatter now. Yes, sir. You want to be a good pilot then, boy? Yes. Are all your cadets graduates of the Chinese military academy? No. Quite a few non-commissioned pilots are trained in the flight sergeant school. Oh, I see. How much military training do they get? Well, they get three months and then they begin their flying lessons. Then they train for three years. Yes. They graduate as first-class flight pilots. They finally wake themselves up to be flight sergeants. And those specially qualified can take more training and become commissioned officers. Oh, look. Wang is ready to take off out there with his squatter. That's wonderful. There's a remarkable thing about a Page that nearly all those pilots like Wang didn't know a thing about mechanics before they started. Most of them had never even tightened a nut on a boat. There was something amazing about watching the development of the Chinese Air Force. It seemed to take shape right before my eyes. They not only trained pilots, but they sent their flyers to the war college. We are studying together with army officers, so we may be better able to cooperate with them. The work of the two services was closely knit together. The emphasis is on strategy and tactics and command. Special classes were set up in pursuit, attack, bombardment, radio, gunray and all the other things. But what they needed most was planes. We must have planes. We must raise the money for planes. We must buy planes for the government. Words went out through China, and the Chinese people responded. I saw their answers come in at Jun Qing. The people of Xinjiang will give ten planes to the government. The fourteen crowded groups of Xinjiang, the Wild West of China, were among the first to donate war planes. The Chinese and the Philippines have raised one million pesos for war planes. The Chinese beyond the seas have raised six million three hundred thousand dollars for war planes. And in China itself, in Zixuan province, the most ambitious campaign of all was organized. We of the Chinese Aviation League will raise twenty million dollars Chinese to buy one hundred war planes for the government. China had become air conscious, and soon even the remotest parts of the nation were to become familiar with the drone of airplanes overhead. From among the best of Chinese youth to be trained as pilots, the Air Force Mechanical School was expanded. A juvenile school for boys from twelve to fifteen was established. But as the war dragged on, and China's situation became more serious, the need for more planes and more facilities became grave. Watch the developing Chinese Air Force. They knew as well as we did what a powerful weapon the Air Force could be. They were determined to destroy it before it became strong. When the Japanese get through with this field, there will be nothing left for us to fight with. This was Wang. The young Chinese had been learning to fly several years before. How helpless we are. We must stand by and watch them blow our field to pieces. This was the field of Hang Chao. The field that John Jewett had come to nine years before. And the field where young Wang had learned to fly. There was a Chinese west point of the air. When the last bomb had been dropped, the Japanese left. And the field and most of its facilities lay in ruin. The command the court is pilots and crew is together. They have destroyed our plane. They have destroyed our field. But they have not destroyed us. Nor our will to fight. We must get to Chun Qing. But we have no way to get there. But to walk. We will walk. I saw those valiant men of the Air Force without planes. With nothing but what they had on their backs and in their hands. I saw them on that march to Chun Qing. They cannot crush us Mr. Page. Well, your situation won't be much better at Chun Qing. Will it Wang? Not at Chun Qing perhaps. But perhaps we will get orders there to go elsewhere. Where do you think? I do not know. I must go now Mr. Page. They march to Chun Qing. Then to Kunming. A thousand miles. Then the order came through. The training of Chinese pilots will be moved to India and to the United States. This was 1941. Relations between the United States and Japan were growing worse. Never talk around at war might break out at any time. It was in October of that year that the flying tigers landed in Burma. All right, one sign. Watch the fuselage coming up. Hey Jimmy, look at this. Hey Jimmy, look at this. The rest of the parts are on their way in now. Good. How long will it take you to get those summerhawks assembled? Well, we haven't got the facilities for a hurry up job. But we'll get these planes together as fast as we can. Every minute. They're assembling the other fighters up at Tunggu. And as soon as they're ready, we'll take off from here in Rangoon and join them. It took weeks to get those summerhawks assembled. The men who made up this first volunteer group in the Chinese Air Force were American Army, Navy and Marine pilots. While they were getting ready at Tunggu and Rangoon, the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor. We waited for the arrival of the flying tigers in Kunming. But I'll never forget when they came winging in on December 19th. Nothing ever looks so good to me as those T-40s. We can expect the Japanese here any time now. The Kamahawk fighters were dispersed about the fields. Preparations were rushed to get them ready for anything the Japanese might try. The next day, the Japanese came. Look at that. One of them. But the flying tigers and their T-40s were already in the air. Look at them attacking pan. Just what the old man taught them. Chinosa taught them that one T-40 against one Japanese plane is off numbered three to one. But the two T-40s working together can out-hit and out-fight any six Japanese. Oh, there goes the first jack. They slay them. He's coming down, he's coming down. And there goes another. Add a fly, flush them up, give them the wax. They had a horse-capped squatter on its scatterer. Look at them scram. What damn is so badly they could not get back to base. But General Chinosa taught them work well. In four and a half months, his flying tiger shot down and destroyed more than 200 Japanese planes. He began to breathe more easily. For meantime, many of the Chinese pilots who had been bombed out near Hang Chow and had been walked to Tune King and Kunming. Now we're at Thunderbird Field in Arizona. It's an impressive sight here at Thunderbird Field, ladies and gentlemen. The first class of Chinese to be graduated as pilots are all lined up here and a finer group of young men you've never seen. There are 42 of them. All of them had at least 150 hours in the air before they came here to the United States. And in these 20 weeks of intensive training, which they've just finished, they've been given the standard training of American flyers. They've learned to fly both American pursuit and bomber planes. The graduation ceremonies are over now. And I'm going to bring one of the young pilots up to the microphone. Just step right up to the microphone, Lieutenant Wong. Thank you. Lieutenant Wong, you Chinese have hung up some kind of a record here at Thunderbird, haven't you? Well, I do not know. He's just modest, ladies and gentlemen. Lieutenant Wong and most of the other Chinese pilots completed the ten-week primary course here in six weeks. And they completed the advanced course in about the same time. Congratulations. Thank you. Lieutenant Wong, what would you say has been your greatest difficulty here at Thunderbird? Well, I think the language. Well, I can imagine. It is not only the English that is strange to us, but even among us there are many dialects, and some of us have difficulty understanding the others. But all of you have given a good account of yourselves anyway. Have you really enjoyed your training here, Lieutenant? Yes, sir, we have. We have enough training planes and gasoline here to get our full quota flying. And there are no air raids to interrupt our training. Well, thank you very much, Lieutenant Wong. We return you now. When the first group came back to China, another group went over. They went over in groups of 50. As each group came back, they went into active service against the Japanese. And there goes the first squadron. We are next. Captain Wong, Captain Wong now, sitting in the cockpit of his fighter on the heel of the Chin King. There is the signal. Let's go. See you later, Mr. Page. He waved to me as he started taxiing out onto the field. Johnny's Air Force Colonel stood beside me with a solemn face. I spoke to him. Colonel, you're sending up just about everything you have on this mission, aren't you? Yes. And if we had five or ten times as much, still we could hardly match the strength of the enemy. Yes, I know. Man for man, we are more than their match. But we have too few planes. The ones we have are the same old P-40s that we use by the Flying Tigers. Here they come. Yes. I am inspired every time I see them. The past they have is almost impossible. The enemy fields are all around us, supplied with plenty of planes and plenty of supplies. And our flyers must keep the air clear all the way to Chin 2 and as far in the other directions. Captain Wong and his squadron disappeared. The Colonel and I walked off the field in silence. About an hour later, it started. Come! Hurry! We must save the plane! Not a break! Get the planes! The planes! He's plastered the field with bombs, waved at the wave of them. And when the bombers were gone, waved the fighter's name. They've dived on us with their machine guns barking. Waved the field and the hangers on the plane. Again and again, they're trying to destroy everything. They've got patient bombs in cindieres, anti-personnel bombs, machine guns, and still they come. They came back. Again and again. At last, they were gone. We walked out on the field to survey the damage. There was a ruin nation everywhere. Major, get your men out there and fill in the holes on the runway. Our squadrons will be back in a couple of hours. They all worked like mad to get the field into some kind of shape so the Chinese pilots could land. Everyone worked. Just before dusk, the plane started to come in. There's the first one. Why? It's currently shot up like a seal. Look at the holes in it. Yeah. How could any human being live inside of a plane shot up like that? It currently didn't dance. We walked over to where the plane had taxed it in. Look at the blood coming out of the cockpit. The pilot set motion in his seat. Come on, you over there. Get this man out of this plane. Some of you might help him. Lift him up. I can get out. All right. I went in to help lift him out. Here, let me help you. Oh, I have to page. Hello, Major Chen. Here. I'll put my arm around you. No. Help the others. Lock here then. There you are. There. Major Chen. How did Captain Wong do? Captain Wong. The overwhelming odds. A fighting force growing day by day in the face of an enemy has been in every effort to destroy it. Flyers courageous with meager equipment, burling themselves against the completely equipped Japanese. By the middle of 1944 on the 7th anniversary of their first great victory, they could look with pride at their impressive record of nearly 800 enemy planes destroyed, 23 warships, nearly 1,000 transports and other ships sunk, and 1,600 enemy motor vehicles wiped out. Could have this advanced space ready for operations within two weeks, Mr. Page? Yes. To me, Colonel, this side here, tens of thousands of Chinese working with the most primitive tools, creating a great deal like this out of hills and valleys and farms kills the indomitable spirit of the Chinese people, and their will to have an air force. Yes. But there is much work to be done, Mr. Page. We have established major bases in the rear provinces, and we are building more and more advanced bases like this one, with underground fuel and bomb depots. But we realize, as your military leaders do, that not only must we have an air force, but that we must develop fields to be stepping stones to Japan. Almost nothing, 13 years ago, the Chinese Air Force is today emerging as an important factor in the war in the Pacific. To tell the part of this playing, the National Broadcasting Company presents from Washington, D.C., Colonel C.Y. Liu, speaking for General Peng Tzu Mao, director of the Chinese Air Force in the United States. The next voice you will hear will be that of Colonel Liu. We take you now to Washington, D.C. The National Broadcasting Company has asked me to say a few words on this program. I deeply appreciate its honor. For in 1937, China took up arms against the Japanese aggressors. The Chinese Air Force, young and numerically small, and flinchingly gave better to the invaders. It was making victory in the face of overwhelming and main superiority. During the ensuing years of China's long stand against aggression, it suffered from shortage of personnel and equipment. But it fought to do today all, and fought well with the bigger resources at its command. Since Pearl Harbor, China has not been fighting single-handed as formerly. Leading out the branches of Allied forces, the U.S. 14th Air Force for nearly three years has been fighting side-by-side with the Chinese Air Force. American Chinese Airmen have grown to be a closely unit. Together they say the same sky and hunt the same anime. Their exploits have given strength to our ground forces. Their presence over the anime-haired areas has brought hope and assurance to the people under Japanese tyranny. In the United States, the Chinese Air Force has received the full cooperation of the U.S. Army Air Forces into training programs. Many classes of Chinese pilots have been graduated. These graduates are now serving in China and have distinguished themselves in many battles. There's no element of surprise for me in their outstanding records because it is the logical result of the finest possible training they have received in its country. Today, the air over China is no longer the exclusive domain of Japanese planes. The air superiority which the anime enjoyed in the past years has now been rested from him. More importantly, the U.S. 20th and 21st Air Forces have marked their strength in the Pacific and have brought the entire Japanese homeland under cease-fire air bombardment. The anime has lost the control of the air and because of this loss, she will soon face the mighty Allied land and sea forces in his own backyard. We have all learned from the records of the war in Europe how air power has been the one crucible factor in all its military events today and how Allied control of the air has made the Allied invasion of continental Europe possible. Japan is certainly no exception and her collapse like that of her last ex-partner in Europe is only a matter of time. The members of the Chinese Air Force having fought through the past several years has been an advance guard against aggression. He means in honor and privilege to be now marked in sight by sight with Allied forces towards the goal of final victory. Thank you Colonel C.Y. Liu. We return you now to Hollywood. Coming to the Pacific story presented by the national broadcasting company and its affiliated independent stations as a public service to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable across currents of light in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific story program send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. It is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Palusso. Your principal voice was that of Jack Edward Sr. This program came to you from Washington, D.C. in Hollywood, California. This is the national broadcasting company.