In Col. Robert Scott’s book “God Is My Copilot,” he relates his experiences serving with the American Volunteer Group in China, better known as the Flying Tigers. Scott was not an official member of the group. Rather, he was assigned as a transport pilot, but talked AVG leader Gen. Claire Chennault into “loaning” him a P-40 to help protect the cargo aircraft.
Scott wrote about the air raid warning system, consisting of observers with listening devices that could detect the sound of incoming Japanese raiders if they were flying above cloud cover. The net was also used to help direct friendly aircraft back to their home base if they were lost or encountered bad weather. On one occasion, a radio operator was talking to a P-40 pilot who reported he was lost and running low on fuel, but kept insisting he should fly a heading that the controller could see would not get him home. The listening outposts had the P-40’s location zeroed in, and the controller started to get frustrated with the pilot. Finally, the (likely enlisted) radioman had had enough (this is paraphrased): “Look buddy, which one of us is lost? I’m telling you, fly 020 degrees for 27 miles – you’ll be over the field in time for dinner. Yeah. We’ve got grits tonight.”
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