The China Pilot

This is the story of how, at the end of World War II, a young American pilot, Felix Smith, had to choose between returning home to a job with a commercial airline and remaining in Asia. Smith chose to stay, becoming one of the first pilots to fly for Gener

The author was a pilot for a China-based airline known as the Civil Air Transport, reputed to be the most shot at in the world. Smith recounts in vivid detail his experiences ferrying troops and equipment for the Nationalists during the China civil war, supplying supplies to war-torn regions, and flying other missions during post-World War II conflicts. 16 photos.

On Tuesday, November 17, 1942, aircraft CNAC No. 60 climbed slowly toward the Himalayas, growing smaller and smaller until it finally faded from sight, never to be seen again—until seventy years later. This is the story of one family’s search for answers about the aircraft and its crew, particularly the co-pilot, James S. Browne. Browne was a pilot for China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), an airline jointly owned by the Republic of China and Pan American World Airways and flown under contract with the U.S. Army Air Corps. CNAC’s mission was to pioneer and fly the dangerous Hump routes over the Himalayas to deliver gasoline, weapons, ammunition, and war goods. These supplies were desperately needed to keep China in the war, for if China left the war, more than one million Japanese troops would be free to control the Pacific. Browne and his crew were killed in a plane crash while en route to Dinjan Airfield in India for supplies. Rescue missions following their disappearance were unsuccessful. Nearly forty years later, Robert L. Willett picks up where the search left off, hoping to find Browne, his missing cousin. After gathering crash-site information on a trip to China, Willett sends a search team on three ascents up Cang Shan Mountain near Dali, China, and finally strikes metal—the scattered wreckage of Browne’s C-47. From the very beginning of the discovery eight years ago, Willett’s efforts to excavate the site and bring Jimmie Browne home have encountered bureaucratic roadblocks with U.S. government agencies and the Chinese government. His search-and-recover mission continues even today.

The thrilling story behind the American pilots who were secretly recruited to defend the nation’s desperate Chinese allies before Pearl Harbor and ended up on the front lines of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China. At a time when the Allies were being defeated across the globe, the Flying Tigers’ exploits gave hope to Americans and Chinese alike. Kleiner takes readers into the cockpits of their iconic shark-nosed P-40 planes—one of the most familiar images of the war—as the Tigers perform nail-biting missions against the Japanese. He profiles the outsize personalities involved in the operation, including Chennault, whose aggressive tactics went against the prevailing wisdom of military strategy; Greg “Pappy” Boyington, the man who would become the nation’s most beloved pilot until he was shot down and became a POW; Emma Foster, one of the nurses in the unit who had a passionate romance with a pilot named John Petach; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek herself, who first brought Chennault to China and who would come to visit these young Americans. A dramatic story of a covert operation whose very existence would have scandalized an isolationist United States, The Flying Tigers is the unforgettable account of a group of Americans whose heroism changed the world, and who cemented an alliance between the United States and China as both nations fought against seemingly insurmountable odds.

This book provides a detailed study of practices of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (Shanghai FTZ henceforth). It aims to answer questions related to establishing the Shanghai FTZ and improving its practices, such as the future of world's macro-economy, the Shanghai FTZ's position in Chinese and world economy, government transition and international trade upgrading, as well as financial sector opening up strategies and innovations. By answering these questions, implications for possible future policy developments are provided. Though the operation of Shanghai FTZ is the main focus, this book delves deeper into the question of how China will further reform its financial system in the future. Similar to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which heralded China's economic transformation in the 1980s and 1990s, the Shanghai FTZ may well be such a pioneer project, pointing to the future economic path that China might tread. Written by the foremost Chinese economists — with some involved in the setup process of the Shanghai FTZ, this book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the prospects of the Shanghai FTZ and the future direction of the Chinese economic development.