We tell the roaring tale of the Flying Tigers, the group of American mercenaries who took on the Japanese Air Force in the dark days following Pearl Harbor.

In January 1941, tensions between the US and Japan were running high. In the fallout from the June 1940 defeat of France, the Japanese had moved their troops into northern French Indochina. Claiming that the move was essential to the conduct of their war against China, they promised to respect French sovereignty. Correspondingly, America suspended the sale of aviation gasoline, steel and scrap metal to Japan. A crippling total embargo seemed worryingly near.

As Japan, Germany and Italy consolidated their de facto alliance in the September 1940 Tripartite Agreement, the US accelerated its anti-Japanese efforts. As well as persuading Britain to reopen the Burma Road, the chief land route for supplying arms to China, Washington also made plans for the American Volunteer Group (or ‘Flying Tigers’) to be transferred to China in order to fight the Japanese. The Lend-Lease Act, which made it through the US congress in March, would also be used to supply arms and supplies to China.

Despite a series of conciliatory gestures in the early months of 1941, such as the signing of a Japanese-Soviet nonaggression treaty in April, the seeds of the Pacific War had already been sown. In July, Japanese troops marched into southern Indochina; America responded by freezing Japan’s assets. Amidst a sea of failed diplomatic manoeuvres, an economically strangled Japan and an uncompromising USA hurtled rapidly towards a full-scale conflagration.

When the December 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor finally propelled American into the Second World War, the ‘Flying Tigers’ were already prepared for their minacious mission. Created primarily by Claire Chennault, a retired US Army Air Corps captain who advised Chiang Kai-Shek during the Sino-Japanese war, the mercenary fighter unit had beet training vigorously in Burma and China for a year.

Just two weeks after the attack, the Tigers engaged in their first fight against the Japanese. This programme outlines their terrifying travails and relives their spectacular successes. The team have been credited with the destruction of almost 300 aircraft, a feat they accomplished while losing only twelve of their own in combat.

We follow leading Tiger aces Tex Hill and John Alison, watching in awe as their distinctive shark-faced P-40 Tomahawks fight ferociously against the agile Japanese 1-97 Nate. At a time when American Pacific victories were few and far between, we also reveal the invaluable positive impact that these events would have upon American public opinion.