The sky was full of animals in those days. More than sixty years ago, during World War II, Yunnan Province in Southwest China sounded like a mythical place. Flying tigers had shark teeth and dogs fought with Peregrine Falcons. Whales flew back and forth over the “Camel’s Hump.” Yet all of these colorful terms actually described a military struggle emerging on the war’s other front.

The official arrival of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, better known as The Flying Tigers, signaled a dramatic change in Japan’s battle for the China-Burma-India Theater of WWII. The volunteer group was organized, trained, and commanded by a man named Claire Lee Chennault. Unofficially they had been in the area for some time, but since the US had not been at war with the Japanese, their role was ambiguous prior to Pearl Harbor.

To most local residents, the Tigers are remembered as simply a group of American saviors. Yet to a few people, the memories and history, both tangible and intangible, are not just relegated to the annals of yesterday. For them, it is an active history; still resonating, still influencing the lives of some in the 21st century.

The physical remains themselves—the machines, tools, bodies, photographs—are scattered across the province. They are buried in the ground and sunken at the bottom of lakes. Others hang on walls. Some are abandoned near rice fields. Many of them rest 20,000 feet above, claimed by the forbidding peaks of the Himalayan range to Yunnan’s northwest. The intangible memories—the impressions, the legacy of the Flying Tigers—have scattered as well.

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In July of 1942 the US Army air forces incorporated the Flying Tigers into their ranks. However, for most Chinese this subtle distinction was of little consequence. To the people of Yunnan the foreign fighters who had come to help fight back the Japanese were all Flying Tigers.

Allied pilots began navigating The Hump over the Himalayas in 1942, after Japanese forces blocked the Burma Road, a crucial supply line to China. This part of the Himalayas earned its nickname because on paper the relief of the route resembled a camel’s unusual body. Flying the cargo-hauling C-46 (known to some as The Whale) with a payload of supplies over The Hump, through violent turbulence and malicious weather, was extremely dangerous. It was much more hazardous than being an actual Flying Tiger who flew P-40 fighter planes into combat against Japanese Ki-43s (Peregrine Falcons).The Curtiss P-40 single-engine fighter plane was known as “The Shark-headed Airplane” to most Chinese because pilots painted their noses into rows of white shark teeth with a look of menace in their eyes. Though the design did not originate with the Flying Tigers, the decoration, made famous by the group, is probably one of the most recognizable in aviation history.

In the early 1940s, over 1500 aviators died trying to cross The Hump. These planes were neither on bombing runs, nor shot down by the Japanese. They were not even Flying Tigers. They were men who unglamorously hauled supplies back and forth over the treacherous mountains, logging four hours of flight time each trip. As for their more famous counterparts, the Flying Tigers themselves, only thirteen were killed in action during the war.

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I am an American airman.

My plane is destroyed.

I cannot speak your language.

I am an enemy of the Japanese.

Please give me food and take me to the nearest Allied military post.

You will be rewarded.

This message, written in vertical columns of black characters, was sewn to the back of every Tiger’s flight jacket that flew the route over The Hump. If his plane was downed during the passage, an injured pilot could, with a little luck, receive help, wherever he landed. It was known as a blood chit.

Today, Sun Hibo, owner of The Hump Guesthouse in Kunming displays such a blood chit on the east wall in the main lobby. The flight jacket it is sewn on sits in a square glass case and is flanked by grainy, black and white photographs of young pilots.

Mr. Sun himself is a successful, middle-aged entrepreneur and looks every bit the part. He has a quick, ceremonious smile and wears his hair in a short-cropped flat top, like some of the young Americans in the pictures 60 years previous.

He traces his interest in the Flying Tigers and WWII history back to his childhood: “During middle school, from a pond at our school, they excavated an American bomb that had fallen there during the war, as well as some hand grenades. Since then, I’ve been interested in studying and understanding this time in history.”

Through the years, Mr. Sun has managed to combine a lifelong hobby with his business venture. The result is a Flying Tigers-themed backpacker hostel. As both a source of pleasure and a business investment, he has assembled a small collection of Flying Tigers war memorabilia, mostly old photographs.

When I ask Mr. Sun about the history of the flight jacket and blood chit, his reply is tinged with a businessman’s earnestness, “I bought that jacket in 2000 from the Kunming second-hand market for 400 yuan. I bought two for 800. A few years ago, a man from Taiwan came and offered me 100,000 yuan for them, but in the end we couldn’t finish the deals.” Later an American expert informed him the jackets were fakes.

Was he heart-broken that it was not genuine article?“Now,” Mr. Sun says simply, “my only regret is not selling them to that Taiwanese guy.”

Yet, Mr. Sun generally downplays the role of physical reminders of the past. “The goal is not simply photographs, artifacts and data. I just want people to think deeply about this history. I want to inspire people to remember it and cherish it.”

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Ge Shuya gets ‘thumbs up’ all the time when he goes around China. He is an historian who has been collecting stories and information about the China-Burma-India Theater for more than twenty years. He estimates that he has talked to over a hundred local Yunnan people about their memories of both the Flying Tigers and the aviators who flew The Hump.

“One thing to remember, though, is that when Chinese people say ‘Flying Tiger,’ they think any American who came in WWII was a Flying Tiger, even people who had nothing directly to do with it. But, of the older people I’ve talked to, there’s not one person who doesn’t speak in glowing terms about the ‘Flying Tigers,’” Mr. Ge says. “Every one of them gives me the thumbs up and starts praising them with a smile.”

Interestingly, the ‘thumbs up’ gesture is thought to have been imported to Kunming by American pilots 60 years ago, something to think about when locals in the region flash it at foreigners traveling through.

“I, myself was extremely surprised by how positive everyone is,” he explained in an email. “It’s been sixty years now and people are still like this. In terms of world aviation history, this is all very rare. I’ve met Chinese people who rescued Flying Tiger pilots sixty years ago and to this day they still keep in touch.”

But what, specifically, do most people remember about the Flying Tigers? Mr. Ge relates the Flying Tigers’ very first encounter with Japanese planes on Dec. 20, 1941. Not only was it a major turning point in this theater of the war, but it was also, Mr. Ge claims, the origin of the moniker ‘Flying Tigers.’

Ten fighter planes were en route to bomb Kunming, which previously, being essentially defenseless, had been a prime target for the Japanese. This time, though, was entirely different. “The Tigers shot down four of the ten planes—of course some say they shot down nine. It was the first time Japanese planes had been shot down and the first time a Japanese bombing had failed. On the ground, there were many people on hand to witness it.

“The Kunming people were extremely happy. They ran around telling people the news and rushed to the airport to celebrate. They no longer had to suffer Japanese bombing: for Chinese people, this is the most valuable memory of the Flying Tigers.”

Over the next eleven days, the Tigers, at times facing waves of up to 80 Japanese bombers, continued to dominate the skies over Yunnan, Burma, and India. By the beginning of 1942, less than two weeks after their first encounter, the Tigers had shot down 75 planes to the Japanese 6.Ever since, says Mr. Ge, the AVG has been known as the Flying Tigers. The tiger in Chinese astrology is often associated with good fortune and power, to be both feared and respected. In reality the group fit the bill quite well.

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The Flying Tigers are a business enterprise to some, and a life’s worth of private research to others. They are remembered both for when they came and what they did. In the case of transporters who are mistakenly identified as ‘Flying Tigers,’ some are even remembered for things they never did.

Both Ge Shuya and Sun Hibo were adamant that this history is something to be shared with those around them: it must be disseminated, and scattered.

Mr. Sun explains the legacy of the US presence in WWII succinctly: “For most Chinese people, they remember the war as a new vocabulary: Flying Tigers, Chennault, shark-headed planes, American-Chinese cooperation, volunteerism, love stories, American products, friendship, mutual assistance.”

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The Flying Tigers continue to live on in post-war form. Just after WWII’s conclusion two Tigers, Roy Farrell and Sydney de Kantzow, bought a couple of army surplus DC-3 cargo planes and launched Cathay Pacific Airlines. From those humble beginnings it has become one of the region’s biggest carriers with a fleet of 108. CE

Tom Pellman is a freelance writer living in Beijing. He can be contacted at tpellman@gmail.com.