* Joe was the dachshund of General Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers and then the China Air Task Force of the US Army Air Forces, and became the mascot of those organizations.

The 1924 Texas Republican gubernatorial nominee, George C. Butte, was reared on a farm near Commerce, and World War II war hero Claire Chennault was born in Commerce.

Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault ( September 6, 1893 – July 27, 1958 ), was an American military aviator.

Claire Lee Chennault was born in Commerce, Texas, to John Stonewall Jackson Chennault and Jessie ( nėe Lee ) Chennault.

The 1900 US Census record from Franklin Parish, LA, Ward 2 states that C. L. Chennault was six years of age in 1900, with a younger brother, aged three.

However, as Soviet air units increasingly flowed into China from the beginning of 1938, Chennault was sent to Kunming to head up a new training effort.

Chennault was on a special mission for Chiang Kai-shek.

Chennault also was able to recruit some 300 American pilots and ground crew, posing as tourists, who were adventurers or mercenaries, not necessarily idealists out to save China.

Throughout the war Chennault was engaged in a bitter dispute with the American ground commander, General Joseph Stilwell.

In 1951, a now-retired Major General Chennault testified and provided written statements to the Senate Joint Committee on Armed Forces and Foreign Relations, which was investigating the causes of the fall of China in 1949 to Communist forces.

Together with Army General Albert C. Wedemeyer, Navy Vice Admiral Oscar C. Badger II, and others, Chennault stated that the Truman administration's arms embargo was a key factor in the loss of morale to the Nationalist armies.

Chennault advocated changes in the way foreign aid was distributed, encouraged the U. S. Congress to focus on individualized aid assistance with specific goals, with close monitoring by U. S. advisers.

Shortly before his death, Chennault was asked to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the Congress.

Chennault was promoted to Lieutenant General in the U. S. Air Force, several days before his death on July 27, 1958 at the Ochsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans.

Chennault was twice married and had a total of ten children, eight by his first wife, the former Nell Thompson ( 1893 – 1977 ), an American of British ancestry, whom he met at a high school graduation ceremony and subsequently wed in Winnsboro, Louisiana on December 24, 1911.

On January 11, 1960, his son, David Chennault was defeated in a Democratic runoff election for the office of Louisiana state custodian of voting machines.

Son Claire P. Chennault was a United States Army Air Corps and then Air Force officer from 1943 to 1966 and subsequent resident of Ferriday.

The ceremony was headed by retired Brigadier General Jimmy Stewart, and a portrait of Chennault by cartoonist Milton Caniff was unveiled.

An award plaque was presented by Stewart to presidential adviser Thomas Gardiner Corcoran and fighter ace John R. " Johnny " Alison, who both accepted for Anna Chennault, who could not attend.

The owner, Chennault, was approached by the CIA, who bought out the company through a holding company, the American Airdale Corporation.

* April 9, 1942 Claire Chennault inducted into U. S. Army as a colonel, bringing the AVG Flying Tigers squadrons under Stilwell's nominal authority.

But under Chennault they developed into a crack fighting unit, always going against superior Japanese forces.

In July 1942, the AVG was replaced by the U. S. Army 23rd Fighter Group, which was later absorbed into the U. S. 14th Air Force with General Chennault as commander.

With the United States entry into World War II against the Empire of Japan in December 1941, Claire Chennault, the commander of the American Volunteer Group ( AVG ) ( known as the Flying Tigers ) of the Chinese Air Force was called to Chungking, China, on 29 March 1942, for a conference to decide the fate of the AVG.

Chennault was opposed to inducting the Flying Tigers into the Army.

Chiang Kai-shek finally agreed to induction of the AVG into the USAAF, after Stilwell promised that the fighter group absorbing the induction would remain in China with Chennault in command.

When the last 16th Squadron Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawks arrived in Kunming in July 1942, Chennault took them into the CATF – and never returned them.

As General Chennault had predicted, supplies carried over the Ledo Road at no time approached tonnage levels of supplies airlifted monthly into China over the Hump.

CAT was created by Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer in 1946 as Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ( CNRRA ) Air Transport.

How to obtain the shopping list of aircraft, aviation supplies, volunteers and funds for the Bank of China were discussed in a meeting held at the home of Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Saturday afternoon, December 21, 1940, with Captain Chennault, Dr. T. V. Soong, and General Pang-Tsu Mow.

The first Time magazine photo coverage of Claire Chennault took place in its Monday, December 6, 1943, issue.

Chennault followed shortly after with a promise from the War Department and President Roosevelt to be delivered to Chiang Kai-shek that several shipments of P-40C fighters were forthcoming along with pilots, mechanics, and aviation supplies.

Poor health and disputes with superiors led Chennault to resign from the service on April 30, 1937, leaving with the rank of captain.

Traveling with Chennault were four Chinese government officials: Mr. Shiao-down Chiang, Mr. Liu Yu-Wan, Mr. Tuan-Sheng Chien, and Mr. Ken-Sen Chow.

By 1940, seeing that the Chinese Air Force had collapsed, because of ill-trained Chinese pilots and shortage of equipment, Chiang Kai-shek sent Chennault to the United States to meet with Dr. T. V. Soong in Washington DC, with the following directed purpose: to get as many fighter planes, bombers, and transports as possible, plus all the supplies needed to maintain them and the pilots to fly the aircraft.

Time magazine cover of Major General Claire Lee Chennault, U. S. A. A. F, commander of 14th Air Force in China, with a Burmese tiger with wings.

Prior to that, Chennault had rejoined the Army with the rank of colonel.

Chennault believed that the Fourteenth Air Force, operating out of bases in China, could attack Japanese forces in concert with Nationalist Chinese troops.

He famously differed as to strategy, ground troops versus air power, with his subordinate, Claire Chennault, who had the ear of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

Other wartime films with an AVG angle included The Sky's the Limit ( 1942, starring Fred Astaire ); God is My Co-pilot, ( 1943, with Dennis Morgan as Robert Lee Scott, Raymond Massey as Chennault, and John Ridgely as Tex Hill ); Hers to Hold ( 1943, with Joseph Cotten ); and China's Little Devils ( 1945 ).

He built a formidable intelligence network of sympathetic Chinese informants, supplying Chennault with information on Japanese troop movements and shipping, often performing dangerous incognito field assignments, during which he would brazenly hold Sunday church services for Chinese Christians.