|
These are the ten AVG pilots who in 1945
formed the Flying Tiger Line
|
Bob Prescott
Duke Hedman
Link Laughlin
Cliff Groh
Bus Loane
|
Bill Bartling
Tommy Haywood
Joe Rosbert
Dick Rossi
Catfish Raine
|
Robert Prescott returned
to the United States in November, 1944 and on a trip to Acapulco,
Mexico, met a group of Los Angeles businessmen associated with
Samuel B. Mosher, Los Angeles oil pioneer and magnate. They were
exploring the possibility of establishing an airfreight line along
the west coasts of the United States and Mexico. Prescott
convinced them that a better idea would be a transcontinental
route across the United States. They agreed to match whatever
capital he could raise, and Bob was appointed to find aircraft and
set up the airline that was to become Flying Tiger Line.
|
He found 14 Navy surplus Budd Conestoga cargo aircraft
and collected $89,000 from friends who had flown with him in
China. This sum was equaled by Mosher's group. A month or so
later, he landed his first three loads -- a planeload of grapes
from Bakersfield to Atlanta, flowers from California to Detroit,
and furniture from New York to California. Flying Tigers was off
the ground.
A four-year fight for official government certification
ended in 1949 with approval of the nation's first commercial
all-cargo route.
|
 |
Bob with automobile ready
for shipping
on board a Budd Conestoga...1945
|
  |
Bob with "Connie"
bearing
early Tiger logo..1957
|
Bob greets the airline's
first CL-44 "swing tail"
........1961
|
Inspecting his
airline's
first jet-powered freighter,
a Boeing 707....1965
|
 |
Twenty years later, in mid-1969, Flying
Tigers was awarded the first scheduled transpacific all-cargo route.
In 1977, Congress and the President approved the deregulation of the
airfreight airlines which now enables Flying Tigers to offer
expedited freighter service to all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands.
|
Prescott and Hoffman in the cockpit of
Flying Tiger's first B-747 jet freighter, with Boeing President E
H "Tex" Bouillioun...1974
|
Bob had witnessed his original fleet of World
War II surplus aircraft grow into a multi-million dollar fleet of
Boeing 747 and stretched DC-8 jet freighters.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
From an August 1973 Retirement Party for Tom Haywood:
Pilots from the Chennault days in China ---
Standing, from left, Bob Raines, Paul Greene, Eric Shilling, R.T. Smith,
Jim Cross, Dick Rossi.
seated, Tom Haywood, Bill Bartling, Cliff Groh. |
|
|
|
John Richard Rossi
To the right is the photo collage of Dick in the AVG.
Anyone wishing a copy send $15 check (includes first class postage within the U.S.
International needs to add $2 extra) to Lydia Rossi at 3038 E. Mission Road, Fallbrook,
CA 92028. Any questions, call 760-723-4757. Photo is
8x10"
Autograph can be personalized if they let me know when they send the
check.
|
|
John Richard Rossi was born on April 19, 1915 in Placerville,
California. Schooled in San Francisco, he attended the University of
California at Berkeley. He entered the Navy for flight training in the
fall of 1939. Upon receiving his wings and commission in 1940, he was
assigned as Flight Instructor at Pensacola, Florida.
"Dick" Rossi resigned his Navy commission in 1941 to join the
American Volunteer Group (AVG) under the command of Colonel Claire
Chennault. He arrived in Rangoon on November 12, 1941 with a group of
thirty volunteers on the Dutch ship M.S. Bosch Fontein. He was undergoing
a training program in P-40 aircraft at Toungoo, Burma, when Pearl Harbor
was attacked.
Rossi engaged in his first combat over Burma in January 1942 (the
second time he fired the guns in the P-40 he was in combat) and flew his
last over the East China front in July 1942. Most of his combat missions
were over Rangoon. Dick was a member of the AVG's First Pursuit Squadron
(Adam and Eve). He also did detached combat duty with the Second and Third
Squadrons, serving under all the AVG squadron commanders. He attained Ace
status with a confirmed 6-1/4 victories in air-to-air combat.
When the AVG, better known as the "Flying Tigers," was
disbanded in 1942, Rossi joined the China National Aviation
Corporation, flying supplies from India to China. By the time the war was
over he had flown more than 735 trips across the "Hump." After
the war, Rossi, a founder of the freight carrier, the Flying Tiger Line,
returned to California where he flew as a captain for 25 years, logging a
lifetime of over 25,000 flying hours. He has served as president of the
American Volunteer Group Flying Tigers Association for fifty-five years
and is a member of the American Fighter Aces Association.
The Chinese government awarded Rossi the White Cloud Banner (Yun Mo) V
Grade, China Air Force Wings (5 Stars) and the China War Memorial (Kang
Chan Chi-nien Chang) Decoration. He has also earned and received two
Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Air Medal, two Presidential Unit
Citations, a World War II Victory Medal, the Asiatic Pacific Campaign
Medal with four bronze stars for the India-Burma, Central Burma, China
Defensive and China Offensive campaigns, and the Honorable Service Lapel
Button. In 1969 he was given a Commendation from the USAF for sustained
aerial support of combat operations in South Vietnam. The AVG was inducted
into the Confederate Air Force Hall of Fame in 1998, in Midland, Texas. In
1999 Rossi was awarded the status of "Eagle" by the
International Association of Eagles, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. The AVG was
inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, in July
1999.
Tally record: 6 - 1/4 victories
|
|
|
TOM HAYWOOD
|
|
|
|
|
|
Credit for picture Flying Tigers Association
|
Captain Thomas Haywood, a founder of
Flying Tiger Line and a member of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in
China, died April 28th ('79) at the Centinela Hospital, Inglewood,
California, after a long illness. He was 61. Mr. Haywood,
one of the original "boys from China" who threw in with Bob
Prescott to finance the Flying Tiger Line almost 34 years ago, worked
his first flight for the airline in 1945 as co-pilot to Bob Prescott on
board one of the notorious stainless steel Budd Conestogas. He
piloted Flying Tigers aircraft around the world for the next 15 years,
until his flying career ended with a major heart attack in 1959.
Upon recovery, Mr. Haywood directed the airline's flight operations and
served as manager of ground training until his retirement in 1973.
Mr. Haywood is survived by his wife,
Betty, and his two married daughters, Mrs. Marilyn Haywood Orr and Mrs.
Suzanne Haywood Nahurski. He also leaves his mother, Marie J.
Haywood, two sisters, a cousin and two grand-children.
|
DUKE HEDMAN |
  |
|
Hedman, a member of the Flying
Tigers, became the first American ace when he shot down five enemy
aircraft over Rangoon, Burma, on Christmas Day 1941. Family
records indicate he did this in less than 15 minutes and accomplished it
in part by flying into a formation of Japanese bombers.
The Japanese pilots apparently were
afraid to shoot at Hedman's tiger-toothed, P-40 because they might
accidentally hit their own planes.
Brig. Gen. Claire Chennault
commanded Hedman as part of the American Volunteer Group fighting Japan
before the United States entered the war and wrote the pilot's father, a
banker in rural South Dakota. "He is a first rate combat
pilot and the reckless bravery of his attacks, both on strafing and
bombing missions, and in aerial combat with the Japanese, are something
you can well be proud of," Chennault wrote.
"The ace of the American
Scalpers squadron is an unassuming straight-forward farm boy from South
Dakota who is known as "Duke" to American fliers in
Burma," the Chicago Daily News reported.
Actor John Wayne later picked up the
nickname "Duke" after playing another member of the Flying
Tigers
|
|
|
|
|
Robert "Catfish" Raines |
|
|
|
|
|
Clif Groh pictured with his mother Photo Credit Chris
Groh
|
Cliff and Elsie the cow
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
