China Pilot: Flying for Chiang and Chennault

by Felix Smith

At the end of World War II, young American pilot Felix Smith had to chose between returning home to a steady airline job in Wisconsin and remaining in Asia. However, life in the Midwest could not compete with the excitement and seductive mystique of flying in the Orient. He stayed overseas for almost three decades.
Smith became one of the first pilots of Civil Air Transport, or CAT, the China-based airline co-founded by Claire Chennault, the famed leader of the Flying Tigers. Ferrying troops and equipment for the Nationalists during China's civil war, CAT was also a lifeline that provided medicine and supplies to China's suffering masses during these difficult years. Later CAT flew under CIA contract during the French war in Indochina, the Korean War, American's secret war in Laos, and the Vietnam War. A true aviation pioneer, Felix Smith was in the cockpit from the beginning and saw it all.
With an appreciation of the eccentric and an eye for the exotic, Smith brings to life the colorful, courageous people who kept CAT aloft despite its reputation as "the world's most shot-at airline." Foremost was the indomitable Chennault, whom Smith knew well. Then there were the rugged pilots, such as the legendary James "Earthquake Magoon" McGovern, killed flying supplies to the besieged French forces at Dien Bien Phu, and many others who risked their lives for freedom.

Genres: History

309 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1995

Reviews

[Pieter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fans of Ernest Gann’s “Fate is the Hunter” should read Smith’s recounting of his time flying C-46s and C-47s for Civil Air Transport (CAT) in post WWII China, Korea, and Indochina. His experiences and adventures along with the unforgettable people he worked with will captivate any readers of history or aviation. One of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time.

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's better to be down there wishing you were up here, than to be up here wishing you were down there...

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Chungking was the only place I saw head-on collisions of two bicycles bound in the same direction" wrote Felix Smith, who died a few months ago at age 100, possibly the last of those Americans who piloted planes in China just after the war and witnessed the Chinese revolution. His picture shows a Wisconsinite, a Gerald-Ford like midwesterner who felt the need to run toward danger though he could have been excused from wartime service. In these times, planes skimmed the tops of Himalayan peaks to determine their exact heights, the telegraph messages had to be translated Chinese-English-Chinese as Chinese had no alphabet for the telegraph to work with, and Mao Tse-Tung was a librarian at a university. The narrative goes through harrowing times dropping supplies to help the Chinese Nationalists and slams right into Korea and Indochina, with a 1950 vignette of Saigon and Vientiane. Along the way Smith meets a Brian Blessed lookalike nicknamed Earthquake Magoon [sic] after the Li'l Abner character, a pilot who seemingly flies by instinct and with great gumption matched only by the greatness of his precision. The language and tone is that of a black and white war movie. "You could knock his eyeballs off with a stick," comments a buddy watching Earthquake leer at some female office workers. A new chief pilot is described as a Marine with wooden underwear. Smith comments that he wanted a certain officer and he "to become better strangers". Mechanics call the C-119 Flying Boxcars used in Indochina "dollar nineteens" for their flimsy frames. The flights are dangerous from within and without. At one point pilots are instructed to sit on their parachutes to protect them from surface fire, and Earthquake quips "Confucius say, one hole in ass is sufficient". Later, a driver takes Smith through a pockmarked road near the Vietnam-Laos border at breakneck speed so any mines he hit would explode behind them. If you stick with Smith, you get to read some of the most lyric prose to come out of a math-minded pilot: Laos.

[Kenneth Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good addition to the shelves of the students of China. This autobiographical 1995 work by Felix Smith falls into the same category as E.B. Sledge's 1981 "With the Old Breed"--the latter was the take-off point for the popular series "War in the Pacific" which many have seen recently. The major difference between the two is that Smith focuses on the period after WWII--even though he flew "over the hump" to Kunming during the war. He has many tales to tell about the post-1945 period.
Like Sledge, Smith gives a very personal narrative, and remembers a many details about his adventures in China. He must have kept a notebook or some kind of journal in the post-WWII years--or perhaps a family member kept his letters. Smith's narrative concerns flights around China carrying aid and local products. All of Chennault's air companies after WWII were very successful. The "Flying Tigers" still exist today, by the way, as cargo-haulers.
Having lived in China and visited some of the sites Smith describes, I find this work brings vividly to life aspects of a bitter struggle, which in China lasted from 1931 to 1945, and didn't end there, with the civil war continuing through till the establishment of the People's Republic on 1 October 1949. Smith even has an eye for the cuisine of China, black-marketeering practices; and a nose for the smells of the countryside. He records the clink of glasses in bars in Shanghai, and cows wandering onto airfields in Kunming. These are very good descriptions.
This is a valuable contribution to the body of literature describing China in its Republican period (1911-1949). Smith also describes the work of his pilot comrades during the Cold War (one of them died assisting the French in Viet Nam etc.).
Smith of course was not a professional writer, but his prose is clear, informative, and moves along briskly.
Good work.
Enjoy.

[Nicholas Kokolakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a riveting tale of flying adventures in Asia from pre-WW2 to the tail end of Vietnam, I STRUGGLED reading this book. It took me nearly four months to get through his stories. Not sure why, but it left me rather I inspired.

[EJ_V · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice read on the history of CAT and the fall of China to communism. The author has witnessed a lot of interesting events in Asia in the first 20 years after WWII.

[Richard Marman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised Felix Smith lived through his adventures in SE Asia. This is an interesting and often exciting read.

[Jaide · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish.
An important historical resource, I’m sure, but the author lost me at waxing poetic about “falling in love” with a married woman.