Chennault, Claire Lee.

Chennault, Claire Lee, born on 06-09-1893 in Commerce, Texas,

to John Stonewall Jackson Chennault and Jessie (born Lee) Chennault. His surname is of French origin; the French pronunciation is “Shen-oh”, but his family pronounced it “Shen-awlt”  Claire grew up in the Louisiana towns of Gilbert and Waterproof. He began misrepresenting his year of birth as either 1889 or 1890, possibly because he was too young to attend college after he graduated from high school and so his father added three years to his age. Chennault attended Louisiana State University between 1909 and 1910 and underwent ROTC training. He and his wife, Nell, moved to West Carroll Parish where he served as principal of Kilbourne School from 1913 to 1915. At the onset of World War I, he graduated from Officers’ School at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, and was transferred to the Aviation Division of the Army Signal Corps. He learned to fly in the Air Service during World War I, graduated from pursuit pilot training at Ellington Field, Texas . During World War I, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and pioneered in aviation pursuit tactics. A contentious officer, he was a fierce advocate of “pursuit” or fight-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment. Chennault retired in 1937, went to work as an aviation trainer and adviser in China, and commanded the “Flying Tigers” during World War II, both the volunteer group and the uniformed units that replaced it in 1942. One day, Chennault saw five landing crack-ups, and watched several fighter-pilots, supposedly ready for combat, spin-in and kill themselves in basic trainers. He was an originator of the idea of using paratroopers. In 1937 he resigned from the army and became aviation adviser to the Chinese government, leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, thenat war with Japan.

   For the Chinese air force he organized volunteer American aviators into a corps known as the “Flying Tigers.” The corps became famous for defending the Burma Road, the Chinese supply route from India.

   During World War II Chennault was recalled to American service as a Brigadier General and in 1942 was given command of the China Air Task Force. He became a Major General in 1943, and from 1943 to 1945, when he retired.

He led the 14^th U.S. Air Force,  as well as the China Air Task Force.

Death and burial ground of Chennault, Claire Lee.

   After the war he returned to China and organized a commercial airline, which he later directed from Taiwan Claire Lee Chennault, his family name is French and is pronounced shen-auw, died of cancer at the age of 65, on 27-07-1958.

Chennault was diagnosed with malignant cancer in his left lung in late 1957. The doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center said that the cancer, the result of years of smoking cigarettes, would kill him in six months. He and his wife took the opportunity to tour Europe one last time, and they landed in Taiwan in January 1958 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of CAT. Chennault was very weak, unable to cut the cake. He and Anna flew back to the States.

Chennault was promoted to the honorary rank of Lieutenant General in the U.S. Air Force on 18-07-1958, nine days before his death on July 27, at the Ochsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans. Clair and his wife Anna are buried on Arlington National Cemetery , Section 2. Close by in Section 2 the graves of General, Commander 92^nd “ Negro Division” , Edward “Ned” Almond, Major General, Commander 8^th Bomber Command Europe, Frederick Anderson, Rear Admiral, Commander Destroyer Greyson, Frederic Bell, Navy Admiral, “Operation Crossroads”, William Blandy, General, Commander 32^nd Infantry Division , Clovis Byers, Navy Admiral. Battle of the Leyte Gulf, Robert Carney, Lieutenant General, Commander 4^th Corps , Italy Campaign, Willis Crittenberger), Major General and commander of the 5^th Infantry Division , Joseph Michael Cummins, Brigadier General, First African-American General, Benjamin Davis, Quartermaster Lieutenant General, John De Witt, Major General and Head OSS, William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Brigadier General, Speck Easley, Marine Corps Major General, Commander 1^st Raider Battalion, Merritt “Red Mike” Edson, Lieutenant General, VIII Army, Robert Eichelberger, Navy Admiral, Commander Nord Pacific Fleet, Frank Fletscher and Navy Admiral, Commander VII Forces, William Fechteler, Admiral, U.S. Chief of Naval Material, John Gingrich and U.S. Brigadier General, “ Merrills Marauders “ in Burma, Frank Dawn Merrill, U.S. 4* Navy Vice Admiral, Commander U.S.S. Hornet, Doolittle Raid, Marc Mitscher.

Chennault was married twice and had a total of ten children. He had eight children with his first wife Nell Thompson (1893-1977), an American of British descent. He married 12-24-1911 and the marriage ended in 1946. On 12-02-1947 he married Chen Xiangmei (Anna Chennault,

1925-2018), a reporter for a Chinese news agency 30 years his junior. She covered the war developments and in post-war China she reported on Mao Zedong and his communist revolution. With her he had two more daughters. After her husband’s death, the 35-year-old widow moved to Washington D.C.. With the help of her husband’s political friends, she became very active as an anti-communist.

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