page_title: 23rd Fighter Group
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: 23rd Fighter Group / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: General Chennault converses with his men&#160;: pilots of 23d Fighter Group. P-51 Mustang in background.
context_page_description: The 23rd Fighter Group is a United States Air Force unit. It is assigned to the 23rd Wing and stationed at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.
  The 23rd Fighter Group was established in World War II as the 23rd Pursuit Group of the United States Army Air Forces. Redesignated the 23rd Fighter Group before its activation, the group was formed in China on 4 July 1942, as a component of the China Air Task Force and received a small cadre of volunteer personnel from the simultaneously disbanded 1st American Volunteer Group – the "Flying Tigers" of the Chinese Air Force.
  To carry on the traditions and commemorate the history of the AVG, aircraft of the USAF 23rd Fighter Group carry the same "Shark Teeth" nose art of the AVG's Curtiss P-40 Warhawks, along with the "FT" tail code. The 23rd Fighter Group's aircraft are the only United States Air Force aircraft currently authorized to carry this distinctive and historical aircraft marking.
context_section_description: By 15 June 1942, under orders from Tenth Air Force, an advance cadre of pilots and aircraft had proceeded over the Hump to Kunming, China, for combat familiarization. Without ceremony, the 23rd Fighter Group was activated 4 July 1942, marking the first such activation of a United States fighter unit on a field of battle in World War II.
  Claire L. Chennault, meanwhile, had been recalled to active duty with the rank of brigadier general and placed at the head of the China Air Task Force (later to grow into Fourteenth Air Force). The 23rd Fighter Group became a component of the Task Force and was assigned three squadrons, the 74th, 75th, and 76th Fighter Squadrons.
  The group inherited the mission of the American Volunteer Group "Flying Tigers" (AVG). Five of Chennault's staff officers, five pilots and 19 ground crewmen entered the United States Army Air Forces and became members of the 23rd Fighter Group. Approximately 25 Flying Tiger pilots, still in civilian status, volunteered to extend their contracts for two weeks to train the new group following the disbanding of their organization. The original aircraft of the group were a mixture of Curtiss P-40 Warhawks from a batch of 50 sent to China for the AVG between January and June 1942, and a follow-up shipment of 68 P-40Es transferred from the 51st Fighter Group in India and flown over the Hump by personnel to be assigned to the 23rd, also mostly from the 51st Group.
  Others from the ranks of the original Flying Tigers left China when their contracts expired, although some returned to duty later with the Army Air Forces in the China-Burma-India Theater. In addition to inheriting operational responsibilities from the AVG, the 23rd Fighter Group also benefited from the knowledge and experience of the AVG pilots, and took on the nickname of the disbanded unit.
  Col. Robert L. Scott Jr., already in India as a commander of the Hump operation, became the first commander of the 23rd Fighter Group. He would later author the military classic, "God Is My Co-Pilot."   On the very first day of its activation, the 23rd Fighter Group engaged three successive waves of enemy aircraft and promptly recorded the destruction of five enemy aircraft with no losses to itself.
  The next three years saw the 23rd Fighter Group involved in much of the action over southeast and southwest Asia. It provided air defense for the Chinese terminus of the Hump route, but its operations extended beyond China to Burma, French Indochina and as far as Taiwan. The unit helped pioneer a number of innovative fighter and fighter-bomber tactics. The group used its so-called "B-40" (P-40's carrying 1,000-pound bombs) to destroy Japanese bridges and kill bridge repair crews, sometimes demolishing their target with a single bomb. The unit gained another increase in capability with its conversion to the North American P-51 Mustang aircraft in November 1943.
  Representative of the encounters undertaken by this small and often ill-equipped group was the defense against a major Japanese push down the Hsiang Valley in Hunan 17–25 June 1944. Ignoring inhibiting weather conditions and heavy ground fire, the 23rd Fighter Group provided air support for Chinese land forces and repeatedly struck at enemy troops and transportation. Its efforts in this instance earned it the Distinguished Unit Citation for "outstanding performance of duty in action against the enemy."  In 1945 it help turn the Japanese spring offensive and harassed the retreating Japanese by strafing and bombing their columns.
  Before the 23rd Fighter Group returned to the United States in December 1945, it was credited with destroying 621 enemy planes in air combat, plus 320 more on the ground; with sinking more than 131,000 tons of enemy shipping and damaging another 250,000 tons; and with causing an estimated enemy troop loss of more than 20,000. These statistics were compiled through a total of more than 24,000 combat sorties, requiring more than 53,000 flying hours, and at a cost of 110 aircraft lost in aerial combat, 90 shot down by surface defenses, and 28 bombed
caption: General Claire Chennault with a P-51 Mustang and pilots of the 23rd FG
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