Same Skies, Same Hopes

.. Same Skies, Same Hopes .. THE CHINESE BOYS LEARN TO FLY FAST AND HARD KEEP 'EM FLYING!

THEY ARE JUST kids, these Chinese boys, just little kids-clean-cut, serious, attentive-who have come a long way and a hard way, if you please, to learn to fight and fly like Americans, and to learn how to make most effective use of American planes against the enemy (them louses) in their homeland.

They ought to be home in China playing marbles or going to school studying the ancient wisdom in the books of their fathers, and they would, too, if peace were their people's lot and their country's fortune.

But the tempests of war struck their land like a fury in what seems like ages ago; so when hardly more than children in their teens they laid aside their toys and their books and took up the ways of the soldiers, always fighting, always fighting against the greatest odds, always fighting to drive the intruder from the Look how our destines have merged! How our relationship is sealed with the blood of Pearl Harbor and Shanghai, of Corregidor and Nanking. Now our soldiers have joined yours in a common rank. And our ships and guns and planes seek a common vengeance. Your history of thousands of years and ours of a few hundred; your war of thousands of days, and ours of less than a hundred, is now until victory-one and the same!

You have been fine students-I don't need to tell you that. We all of us in the Air Force have watched your remarkable progress with deep satisfaction. And we say farewell with a certain sadness and, if I may say so, with a certain pride....

These Arizona skies, which you have sailed so high and so well-meet your own native skies across the Pacific. That is a good thing for both of us to rememberthe same skies, the same hopes and we will fight together until they are no longer fringed with the same enemy...

From an address by Major General Ralph P. Cousins, Commanding General, West Coast Air Force Training Center, delivered at the first Chinese graduation ceremonies at Luke Field, Arizona.

In skeet shooting instead of saying “Pull!” these Chinese cadets say “Jap!” and they say it hard and tight-lipped as if they meant it—and they do. They shoot for keeps.

The seriousness and the intentness with which the Chinese students approach their studies at Thunderbird and Luke characterize their desire to fly like Americans.

sacred soil of their land and always fighting hard and relentlessly.

Today, these young Chinese boys so young and so serious are tried but untired veterans of the horrible war at home and what's more most of them have proven their merit in the air against the foe. Now they are here to learn to fly and fight as they could never learn at home and they are here to learn to fly and fight like Americans the best fighting men of all and to learn to fight and fly in American ships--the fastest and toughest ships of all The first class of Chinese cadets came to Arizona last November after a hazardous journey from China, across hostile waters to America. They studied at Thunderbird, and at Williams and completed their studies with advanced train-ing at Luke. They were graduated from Luke as sub-lieutenants in the Chinese Air Force and after leaving Luke received tactical instruction in the east. When they return to their home-land they'll be as well trained as they can be. They feel a lot better about the war now than when they left because now they have confi-dence in their own ability and they have great confidence, too, in the ability of their good friends, the Americans. At the various fields where they studied in Arizona, they were given the same training that is given American cadets, with one exception. The study of English became a part of their course, because instruction was given in English with as little help from interpreters as possible.

Many of these cadets, with a record as veterans in the Armies of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, also served in the Air Forces of their country, and studied at the Central Military Academy, China's West Point, which was established by the Generalissimo in 1926. In January of 1938, their school was moved from Nanchung, capital of Kiangsi Province to Chengtu, Capital of Szechuan Province, and when the school was moved the cadets hiked the 660 miles, fighting as they went, tormented by all the moods of China's changing weather. But neither the weather nor the foe, however cruel or horrible, can molest you in the face of the cold rage seething through your very soul when you see what has happened to your country, what has happened to your homes and to your own people. Only the will to win, only the will to pay back the many old scores, sustained these young Chinese boys in black and bitter moments, when as untrained novices flying inferior equipment, they tried to hurl back the tide of the unfair and cruel fury sweeping against them.

Once their school was located on a mountainside 7,000 feet in elevation. They snatched at hours in the air only between glimpses of good weather. Veteran American observers, seeing the conditions under which they flew and fought in China, were amazed that they could hold together.

So with only a hundred hours or so to their credit after two years of duck-and-dodge studying and fighting these Chinese boys were sent to America to study undisturbed as young Americans study.

The avidity with which they pursued their studies in Arizona, despite language difficulties, has been a most refreshing experience to their American officers and to their American instructors.

One instructor said they all reminded him of a bunch of Confucianists, so polite, so formal, so attentive, so alert, so wideeyed awake to every single thing happening about them. Their brisk, neat figures have become familiar sights on the streets of Phoenix, eliciting universal praise both from American military associates and from civilians for their bearing and demeanor. They may be just a bunch of kids, but they are every inch admirable fighting men. They may look as if they have just played hookey from school, yet they have already gone through experiences enough for the lives of three ordinary persons.

The cadets from China beyond the seas quickly won the hearts and admiration of every American officer and instructor who came into contact with them. The Americans found that the Chinese boys wanted to learn and that they went about their business of learning-seriously and intently.

who has a lot of respect for them is Captain Christy Mathewson, the officer in charge of their advanced training at Luke Field. Captain Mathewson has been in China, knows better than anyone else China's need for air equality against the foe. He knows what China needs good, competent, flyers. and he is just as anxious to have them learn as they are to learn. And as students these Chinese boys show they have the stuff, and Captain Mathewson has high expectations for them also.

And if you could see what utter disdain of life eight or ten of them show when they get in an old jalopy (generally a communal proposition) and go rabbit hunting on the Arizona desert you'd have high expectations for them also.

Captain Christy Mathewson, son of the great American baseball immortal, has been director of training for Chinese students at Luke Field. A graduate of Brooks and Kelly Fields, Captain Mathewson received his commission in the air corps in 1930, served in Hangchow, China, at the military aviation school for a year.

To the Chinese students who have studied here, Major C. J. Kanaga has been a friend, confidant and adviser. This West Pointer is assistant director of training with duties related only to the Chinese program. The Major was attached to the Office of the Military Attachés at the American legation at Peking, speaks Chinese fluently.

Give them the tools to fight with, give them the knowledge to handle the tools and these young Chinese will more than hold their own against the foe. They have the will, and the stamina and the courage. China and the years of suffering gave them that. America will give them the rest to make them invincible.

The one person among their American associates who knows them best, perhaps admires them the most. He is Major C. J. Kanaga, assistant director of training with duties related only to the Chinese program. Major Kanaga is a graduate of West Point and one of the few American officers who speaks Chinese fluently. The Major has been with them ever since they started, and you know by the courtesy and respect and almost humble reverence they hold for him that in the end they'll prove up to his expectations of them. And another American