CATF READY FOR INSPECTION

CATF READY FOR INSPECTION: (CHENNAULT OF CHINA/CATF)

From left to right are; Field Marshal, Sir John Dill, Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington D.C., Brigadier General Claire Chennault, Commander of the China Air Task Force, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, Chief of the US Army Air Forces, Lieutenant General Joseph Stillwell, Commander of the CBI Theater of Operations, and Brigadier General Clayton Bissell, Commander of the 10 Air Force, are seen at Kunming’s Wujiaba airfield during an inspection tour of Chennault’s China Air Task Force.

Sir John Dill would become the Senior British Representative on the U.S. Combined Chiefs of Staff, and would play a crucial role in maintaining the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States during the Second World War, and following his death in 1944, he would be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony that saw the participation of thousands of American military personnel.

Chennault’s China Air Task Force would soon grow to become a numbered US Army Air Force command, which he would command as a Major General, and shortly before his death on July 27, 1958, he would be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force.

“Hap” Arnold would soon be promoted to the rank of a full Army General, and in December 1944, Arnold would be promoted to the rank of General of the Army (Five Stars) and in May 7, 1949, Arnold would become the first and only General of the Air Force (Five Stars).

In August 1944, Stillwell would be promoted to the rank of full Army General (Four Stars), the rank he would hold until his death in October 12, 1946 while serving as Commander of the Sixth United States Army.

Initially as a Brigadier General, then from March 1943, as a Major General, Bissell would serve as the commander of the 10th US Army Air Force in India and Burma, from August 1942 through August 1943. The last two years of the War saw Bissell being assigned to the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence on the War Department General Staff.

Beyond his well know abuse of the battle hardened veterans of the AVG, Bissell is perhaps best known to the officers and men of the China Air Task Force and the 14th Air Force, as the recipient of a very special greeting from a specially coached group of hard-working Chinese Ground Crewmen who were assigned to unloading and service the transport aircraft that had flown Bissell and Lt. General Stillwell onto a CATF airfield for a conference with Brigadier General Chennault. As the story goes, a former AVG fighter “ace” who was then serving in a key leadership role in the CATF, had instructed the non-English speaking ground crewmen to greet Bissell by snapping to attention and shouting out a welcoming “Piss of Bissell.” And of course I would never mention the name of the AVG and CATF fighter “ace” who instructed the enthusiastic Chinese ground crewmen in their very special greeting for the “General,” and I would never suggest that before his time with the AVG, he flew for the Navy, and that he was one of the AVG pilot’s who was credited with shooting down a Japanese Ki-48 “Lilly” bomber during the AVG’s first aerial encounter with the Japanese Army Air Force on December 20, 1941, but I will say he was a founding Board Member of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, and fortunately for me, he was my friend.