McCook's Glen Beneda and the Flying Tigers

Glen Beneda as a Flying Tiger.

Prior to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, which signaled America's entry into World War II, there were a number of American men fighting for peace in the world, by joining forces with Britain and China, as volunteers. Some of these men, known as the American Volunteer Group -- AVG -- formed the Eagle Squadrons in England and fought alongside the RAF in the Battle of Britain. (Leo Armstrong, the brother of one of my classmates in Plainview, was a member of this group.) The most famous of the AVGs were the Flying Tigers, who served alongside the Chinese in their fight against Japanese aggressors in the Sino-Japanese War 1937-45. These fellows were treated almost like rock stars, and played an important part in keeping America's attention focused on the coming conflict in the years immediately before World War II.

The Flying Tigers were led by the controversial American General, Claire Chennault. Chennault had been the leader of the U.S. Army's Air Tactical School. He was a leading developer of combat tactics for pursuit aircraft in the 1930s, but his ideas and blunt personality had caused him to fall out of favor with his superiors, and when he developed a bad case of bronchitis in 1937, he was quietly mustered out of the Army.

His bold ideas for air fighter tactics had been noticed by others, mainly Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, the head of the Chinese Air Force, and wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, the leader of Nationalist China (as opposed to Red Communist China). She prevailed upon deposed General Chennault to come to China and take over the fledgling Chinese Air Force and direct their opposition to the Japanese invaders.

Chennault's efforts to help the Chinese were difficult to say the least. The Chinese pilots were undisciplined, resented taking orders from a foreigner, and considered practice missions disgraceful. Their planes were outdated, with few replacement parts, and they were facing well trained Japanese pilots with first class airplanes. By 1940 the Chinese Air Force was almost defunct.

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek sent Chennault home to the U.S. to solicit funds and aircraft, to try to save China from total defeat. President Roosevelt was sympathetic to the Chinese cause. Though America was not yet at war, he arranged to send Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks to the Chinese under the American Lend-Lease program. Chennault also was able to recruit American airmen to fly these planes (some from the Army and Navy).

During the summer of 1941 some 300 American flyers, posing as tourists left the U.S. on ships headed for China. Some of these men were adventurers, or barnstormers, or mercenaries, not necessarily idealists out to save China. But under Chennault they developed into a crack fighting unit, always going against superior Japanese forces. They became the symbol of America's military might in Asia. By the time they were absorbed into the Army Air Corps 23rd Fighter Group (still known as The Flying Tigers), they had been credited with destroying some 300 Japanese fighter planes, and Claire Chennault had been welcomed back into the U.S. Army Air Corps as a Major General.

McCook's Glen Beneda had started college in the fall of 1941. Beneda was an idealist, and when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 he immediately joined the Army's air arm. In 1943 he went to China to fight the Japanese aggressors with the 1st American Volunteer Group, famously known as the Flying Tigers.

Lt. Beneda was still just 20 years old in May of 1944 when his P-40 was shot down by several enemy aircraft during an attack on a large Japanese base in Hubei province. Beneda manage to bail out of his stricken plane and landed in a rice paddy. His plane sank in a nearby lake. His right leg was badly injured in the landing, but he was rescued by local farmers who hid him from the Japanese. They also tied heavy stones to his plane, so it sank to the bottom of the lake. Japanese soldiers found nothing.

In rescuing Beneda the Chinese farmers faced serious risk. Just months before, more than 200 people in a nearby village had been executed by Japanese soldiers after farmers from that village were caught saving several American pilots.

After Beneda was able to travel his Chinese hosts carried him, on a door (in lieu of a stretcher) to the camp of Chinese guerrillas, who later sent him to the Red Army.

Said Beneda, "The Red Army treated me very well. We had several encounters with the Japanese patrols, but we evaded most of them. Local people would inform us of the location of the Japanese, and if they were close, we traveled at night."

Beneda's Red Army friends gave him various gifts, including a Japanese ceremonial sword they said had belonged to a Japanese major general. They asked Beneda to present it to Gen. Chennault, which he eventually did.

After two months Beneda was finally reunited with his squadron. He was given a rousing welcome on his return. "They all thought I was dead," said Glen Beneda.

Upon his return to the United States, Beneda was scheduled to be discharged from the Air Force. One day, on a dare, he made an unauthorized flight beneath a bridge -- just to show that it could be done. The Base Commander was not impressed, and felt that Beneda was endangering government property (and presumably government personnel). For a time Beneda thought he might face a court martial. Fortunately, someone in higher authority pointed out that this man was a returning hero -- a Flying Tiger -- and the black eye that the Air Force would receive from such action would be irreparable. The base commander reconsidered and Beneda's honor was saved.

In 2002 Beneda and his wife and son, Edward, returned to China to attend a symposium for Chinese and American veterans who had fought the Japanese. The homecoming was emotional as Glen listened to other veterans tell their stories. One day a Chinese woman visited him at his hotel, after reading of his experience, in the newspaper. She was from the village where Beneda had landed in the rice paddy. It was her grandfather who had come to his rescue. "We had tears in our eyes and I felt like it was the reunion of a long-lost family," Beneda recalled. After more than six decades, the Flying Tigers are still revered in China as saviors of their country.

Recently, Beneda learned that the people from the village where he had landed had started to excavate his crashed plane, and planned to repair the plane and display it in a Memorial Hall at the crash site in Hankou. They invited Beneda and his family to return to China for the dedication.

Beneda, now 84, has spent his post Air Force career as a Fireman in Los Angeles. He will soon undergo heart surgery. In his letter to the China Cultural Links Project, Beneda said, "I often dreamed about my former fighter (plane) being brought back. I still cannot believe that my dream will soon be true. If my health allows, I will go back to China to see my former aircraft with my own eyes."

So, hopefully, sometime in 2009 Beneda and his family will join his long-time friend, and fellow Flying Tiger, Steve Bonner (an air ace, with 10 kills), on an emotional trip to China for a reunion with Glen's P-40 and his friends (and saviors) in Hankou.

Source: China Daily, Dec. 19th, 2008 Note: A new story about Glen Beneda and the Flying Tigers appeared in the Lompo Record on 12/28/08. It can be view online at http://www.lomporecord.come/articles/2008/12/28/news

Notice: On Tuesday evening Jan. 6, 2009 at 7 p.m. there will be a meeting of the Buffalo Commons Storytellers at the Bieroc Café on Norris Avenue in McCook. The subject will be "Blizzards I Have Known." Please come to share yours or your family's stories about blizzards, or come hear blizzard stories of others. Everyone is welcome, admission is free, and there promises to be good blizzard stories, well worth hearing. Mark the date and time!