page_title: Claire Lee Chennault
section_title: Leadership
hierarchical_section_title: Claire Lee Chennault / Military career / Leadership
caption_attribution_description: Catalog #: SF-02 Notes: October 29, 1934 Capt. C.L Chennault, leader of The Flying Trapeze poses in front of a Boeing P-12E Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
context_page_description: Claire Lee Chennault was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Republic of China Air Force in World War II.
  Chennault was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fighter-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the United States Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment. Chennault retired from the United States Army in 1937, and went to work as an aviation adviser and trainer in China.
  Starting in early 1941, Chennault commanded the 1st American Volunteer Group. He headed both the volunteer group and the uniformed U.S. Army Air Forces units that replaced it in 1942. He feuded constantly with General Joseph Stilwell, the U.S. Army commander in China, and helped China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to convince President Roosevelt to remove Stilwell in 1944. The China-Burma-India theater was strategically essential in order to fix many vital elements of the Imperial Japanese Army on the Chinese mainland to limit their use against Allied forces advancing towards Japan in the two Pacific campaigns.
context_section_description: Into the mid-1930s Chennault led and represented the 1st Pursuit Group of the Montgomery, Alabama-based Army Air Corps aerobatic team the "Three Musketeers". The group performed at the 1928 National Air Races. In 1932, as a pursuit aviation instructor at Maxwell Field, Chennault re-organized the team as "Three Men on the Flying Trapeze".
caption: Capt. C.L Chennault poses in front of a Boeing P-12E, 1934 as leader of "The Flying Trapeze".
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