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Born and raised in Portland Oregon, a typical American kid of his
generation, Arthur Chin worked at odd jobs to earn extra money for
flying lessons while still in high school. He was busy earning his
private pilot's license when Imperial Japan began its bid for the
military conquest of China. Alarmed by Japan's growing military
aggression in North China, Portland's Chinese-American community decided
it could best help Chinese resistance by supplying China with a pool of
potential military aviators made up of young American men of Chinese
ancestry.
In 1932, nineteen year old Arthur Chin and thirteen other young
Chinese-Americans sailed for Shanghai, China. However, once in
China, several of the young volunteers found they could not qualify for
flying jobs with the differing organizations that then passed for a
National Chinese Air Force.
Following several weeks of inconclusive interviews with uncertain
government officials Arthur was accepted as a probationary Warrant
Officer pilot in the Cantonese Air Force.
In the 1920's and 30's it was routine for the Chinese military to send
its promising young officers to advanced military training courses in
Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union; Arthur was sent to Germany where he
was trained in advanced fighter tactics by the German Luftwaffe at its
Fighter School at Bie Munich.
Upon his return to China, Arthur Chin was posted to the 6th Squadron of
the Cantonese Air Force and promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. In
mid-1937, Arthur was transferred to the 28th Squadron, 5th Group as the
squadron's vice commander. At that time, the 28th Squadron was
equipped with the nimble
Curtiss Hawk, biplane fighter.
On August 13, 1937, the Japanese initiated the first major battles of
the Second World War with an all-out attack on Shanghai, China's great
seaport city.
The following day, August the 14th, would see the first large scale
clash between Chinese and Japanese aviators, when a large force of
Japanese bombers raided the city of Hangzhou and the Chinese air
training field at Jianqiao. Although outnumbered and outclassed by
the more powerful Japanese air forces, the few Chinese fighters that
rose to meet the attack were able to destroy 6 of the attacking bombers.
Within a few days, Arthur would fight his first aerial combat where he
shared in the destruction of a Japanese bomber with several other pilots
of his squadron. Two days later, he was credited with the destruction of
a Mitsubishi Type 96 twin engine bomber on his own.
In the months that followed, Arthur's squadron replaced its older
American Hawk fighters with newer British Gloster Gladiators. Flying the
faster and better armed British fighters, Arthur's squadron was one of
the few Chinese fighter units able to meet the Japanese on a nearly
equal basis. By the summer of 1938 Arthur had added two and a half more
Japanese aircraft to his score, had been promoted to the rank of captain
and was commanding the 28th Fighter Squadron.
Always fighting on the defensive and nearly always outnumbered in the
air, Arthur and his squadron mates continued to claim Japanese
victories. By mid-1939, Arthur was officially credited with the
destruction of five and a half Japanese aircraft and could boast the
title of Fighter Ace. As such, Arthur along two other young
Chinese-Americans who had accompanied him to China, who like Arthur, had
also destroyed five Japanese aircraft, were the first American Fighter
Aces of the Second World War.
Unfortunately, Arthur's many combat victories did not come without a
personal price, in repeatedly taking-on swarms of Japanese fighters, he
would himself be shot down and wounded on three occasions.
On December the 27th, 1939, Arthur would fly his final aerial combat
mission by leading a flight of three Gladiator fighters against a large
force of Japanese bombers. In the ensuing battle, Arthur's
Gladiator was hit by Japanese gunfire and burst into flames. Somehow, as
a storm of burning aviation gasoline engulfed his airplane, Arthur
managed to free himself from the Gladiator's blazing cockpit, and
parachute safely to the ground.
Badly burned and semi-conscious, Arthur landed in a Chinese held section
of the battlefield, and was quickly rescued by Chinese soldiers.
However, due to heavy fighting and the primitive conditions of the
battlefield, it would be three long and agonizing days before he
received any sort of proper medical care.
The treatment of his injuries would required years of painful surgeries,
and through the efforts of General Claire Chennault and Madame Chiang
Kai-shek, Arthur was eventually sent home and treated by some of the
leading plastic surgeons in the United States.
After nearly five years of recovery and rehabilitation, Major Arthur
Chin was reinstated to flight status and returned to operational flying
in China. Assigned to CNAC, the China National Aviation
Corporation, Arthur ended his war-time flying career at the controls of
C-47 and C-46 transports planes, flying badly needed war supplies into
China over the treacherous "Hump" air route from India.
With the end of the Second World War, and the great tumult of China’s
growing Civil War, Arthur returned to his native Portland, where still
recovering from the terrible burns of his last aerial combat, he would
take a job with the US Postal Service and quietly raised a family.
On October the 4th, 1997, some sixty years after his first aerial
combat, and one month and one day after his death from a long illness,
Arthur Chin - the kid fighter pilot from Portland, who traveled half-way
around the world to defend his father's homeland, was posthumously
honored as one of the first seven American aviators ever inducted into
the American Combat Airmen's Hall of Fame.
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