The last surviving member of the US World War II air combat unit, the Flying Tigers, has died. Air ace Ken Jernstedt passed away on Feb 4 at a hospice in Wilsonville, Oregon. He was 95.
OLD PALS: Jernstedt, right, and fellow veterans at the Tango Squadron Museum in Chiang Mai, 1994.
The American Volunteer Group (AVG), as the Flying Tigers were officially known, was a US government-sanctioned pursuit unit of the Chinese air force. It operated from December, 1941 to July, 1942, with the primary aim of defending Chinese supply routes through Myanmar from attacks by the Japanese.
Jernstedt was born in 1917 on a farm in Carlton, Yamhill County, Oregon.
He joined the US Marine Air Corps in 1939, and in the spring of 1941, before the US had entered the war, was one of 99 military pilots who signed up to go to China.
Although the AVG was based in Kunming, China, it was in Myanmar and northern Thailand that it established its place in history. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 the three AVG squadrons rotated between Kunming and Yangon.
Most of China's supplies from the outside world arrived at the port of Yangon before travelling along the Burma Road to Kunming. The AVG's main purpose was to protect this route.
As a flight leader in the Flying Tigers' 3rd Squadron, Jernstedt participated in several historic battles against the Japanese. By the time the AVG was disbanded in 1942 he had become its fifth-highest ranking ace, with 10.5 Japanese planes destroyed (the half plane was the result of a shared ''kill'').
Though the AVG never had more than 55 planes and 70 pilots in service at any one time, it was credited with destroying 297 enemy aircraft and a further 150 probables.
Jernstedt's 3rd Squadron, which flew 18 P-40 Tomahawks, took the first watch in Yangon, from mid- to late December 1941. Along with Royal Air Force (RAF) 67 Squadron's 18 pilots flying Brewster Buffaloes, the two units comprised the total air defence of Myanmar. Yangon had no anti-aircraft guns.
The Battle of Yangon raged in the skies, and for 75 days the small Allied air force held the line against a Japanese force of 150 bombers and fighters based in Thailand.
Though outnumbered and out-equipped, the Allies bought time for reinforcements to arrive, and kept supplies moving to Kunming. Their efforts also allowed the Myanmar army _ two divisions and an armoured brigade _ to evacuate Yangon and make a gruelling 1,450km retreat through mountainous jungle to India.
Also, an estimated 500,000 Indian civilian refugees were able to return home along a tortuous land and sea route.
The army would return later in the war to drive the Japanese out of Myanmar.
Moving from defence to offence, the Allied air force in Myanmar targeted enemy bases in northern Thailand.
Three Tomahawks of Jack Newkirk's 2nd Squadron made the first attack, in Tak province on Jan 3, 1942. The area was home to two divisions of the Japanese 15th Army, supported by the Thai Phayap Army's 2nd Division, which were gearing up to invade Myanmar via Moulmein. The Allied air offensive against Thailand quickly spread to other targets, including Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, Mae Sariang, Lampang and Mae Sot in the North, and in the South to Bangkok, Chumpon and Prachuap Khiri Khan.
The first RAF reinforcements for Myanmar arrived at Toungoo, 280km north of Yangon, on Jan 7, 1942. Sixteen Blenheim light bombers of 113 Squadron flew in from Helwan, Egypt. Without rest, the Blenheims were sent, that same night, on a 1,100km round-trip to bomb the Bangkok docks _ the first of many raids the city would suffer during the war.
ALL SMILES: Flying Tiger Ken Jernstedt stands beside his beloved P-40 Tomahawk.
On March 19, 1942, Jernstedt and Bill Reed, flying on a reconnaissance mission, carried out one of the most spectacular attacks in the annals of the Flying Tigers.
They had discovered a Japanese satellite airfield to Moulmein at Mudon. As Moulmein was 400km south of Magwe, the Japanese did not expect an air attack. The two P-40s came diving from the dawn sky, strafing the Nakajima fighters parked wing tip to wing tip in two parallel rows. They made several passes without a shot being fired at them.
At Moulmein airfield, 16km away, they strafed a row of bombers, destroying three. Jernstedt also destroyed a large, twin-engine transport.
Time magazine reported the raid in its April 6, 1942 issue. ''The two 'Flying Tigers' clawed the field with incendiary bullets, and Jernstedt dropped small fire bombs which he had packed into his flare release.''
Jernstedt and Reed were credited with destroying 15 planes on the ground that morning.
A few days later, beginning on Saturday, March 21 and continuing to the next day, the largest Japanese air armada Southeast Asia had ever seen dropped 200 tonnes of bombs on Magwe airfield, delivering a final blow to the Allied air force.
At the onset of the attack, Jernstedt managed to get his plane off the ground just before the first bombs began exploding. Unable to rendezvous with other P-40s, he attacked alone, shooting one bomber out of formation. Coming back for a second pass, he opened fire on a second bomber when his windscreen, hit by a bullet, shattered, sending glass fragments into his left eye. Seeing the second bomber begin to go down, he returned to Magwe where he landed safely, despite bomb craters and his injuries. However his P-40 was destroyed soon after.
Magwe was rendered unusable and the AVG's three remaining Tomahawks were evacuated to Loiwing, China. The RAF's remaining 17 operational aircraft retreated to Chittagong, India. The Allied air force had been pushed out of Myanmar.
In retaliation for the destruction of Magwe, AVG commander Claire Lee Chennault ordered a revenge strike against Chiang Mai and Lampang, from where he believed the Magwe attack force had hailed.
On the morning of March 24, 1942, six P-40s of the 1st Squadron attacked Chiang Mai airfield, while four P-40s of the 2nd squadron, led by Jack Newkirk, were targeted on Lampang, though probably never reached their destination. The 1st Squadron was credited with destroying 15 enemy aircraft on the ground at Chiang Mai.
Two AVG pilots _ William ''Black Mac'' McGarry and Squadron Leader Newkirk _ were lost on the Chiang Mai-Lampang raid that morning.
McGarry was hit by ground fire over Chiang Mai airfield. Attempting to make it back to Myanmar, he bailed out just before his plane crashed in Mae Hong Son province.
He was taken prisoner by the Thai police, and interned in a prison compound on the grounds of Thammasat University in Bangkok. In 1945, the Seri Thai (Free Thai) movement helped McGarry escape.
The four P-40s of Newkirk's 2nd Squadron had been following the Lampang-Chiang Mai railway, guarded by the Thai Phayap Army's 35th Infantry Battalion, when they encountered anti-aircraft fire at the Mae Kuang River railway bridge in Lamphun.
Newkirk circled and began a strafing dive on the gun battery. Seeing what he and the other pilots believed to be armoured vehicles just outside the west gate of Wat Phra Yuen, he opened fire. Flying too low, his right wing clipped a roadside tree, sending the P-40 Tomahawk crashing in a fireball. Tragically, the reported armoured vehicles were merely oxcarts, driven by farmers.
After the AVG was decommissioned in 1942, Jernstedt returned to the US. Along with fellow AVG 3rd Squadron pilot Parker Dupouy, he became a test pilot for Republic Aviation in Long Island, New York, where he worked on the development of the P-47 Thunderbolt.
He later become a successful businessman, was twice-elected mayor of Hood River, Oregon, and served for 22 years as a state senator.
In November, 1994, Jernstedt was part of a delegation of AVG veterans and their families that travelled to Chiang Mai and Lamphun to view the wreckage of McGarry's P-40 Tomahawk. The remains had been found and recovered from Mae Hong Son province in 1992, and subsequently installed in the Tango Squadron Air Museum, RTAF Wing 41, at Chiang Mai airport, on the exact site of the 1942 raid. It is the only known remains of the AVG P-40 Tomahawks.
The AVG delegation also attended a memorial service at Newkirk's former gravesite in Ban Wiang Yong, Lamphun, organised by the provincial governor and mayor of Lamphun.
A cenotaph commemorating the Flying Tigers was dedicated on Nov 11, 2003, at the Chiang Mai Foreign Cemetery, on Lamphun Road, overlooking the Mae Ping River.
Long-time friend and former Hood River mayor Glenn Taylor, described Ken as ''a great leader and always a good friend that never bragged about his many accomplishments''.
Another of Jernstedt's friends, Paul Harshbarger, a financial adviser in Hood River, said, ''Ken was always soft spoken and generous with his time to help put people at ease.
''I never saw him angry or upset. Ken never held himself out as a hero of any sorts, nor did he seem to think he and his band of Flying Tigers had done anything extraordinary.
''Ken always wanted to be sure to live at least to the age of 88, the number on his P-40 aircraft.''
Jernstedt is survived by seven children, 22 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Jack Eisner is a Canadian expatriate living in Chiang Mai. He lectures in linguistics at the Department of Western Languages, Chiang Mai University. He has a keen interest in the history of Thailand in World War II and has written several articles on the Flying Tigers.