Defiance is Key to American Success: Why history should remember Claire Lee Chennault

A few days ago I introduced you dear reader to a book that is very close to my heart, Way of the Fighter by Claire Lee Chennault, the famous World War II general and leader of the valiant Flying Tigers.  There are times when I go to Wright Patterson Airforce Base just to sit next to the P-40 on display there.  It reminds me of what America should be, instead of what it has become.  I am also glad to report that the Tri State Warbird Museum down the road from my house have successfully restored a P-40 from New Zealand.  They restored the P-40 to the paint scheme of the ace pilot that had flown it, which does not have the famous mouth on the front.  But that P-40 to me is special to behold.  Every morning that I ride my motorcycle in the cold putting on my U.S. Wings leather jacket to battle the elements it reminds me of the old fighter pilots from the early days of aviation, which was a specifically American invention.  The Germans, the Japanese, and the British copied off American designs and tried to improve upon them, but it was America that developed aviation, and pushed each new technical break-through.  The P-40 is a representation of this early period between the old bi-planes and the much faster and durable planes like the Mustang and Corsairs that would follow. 

On a previous article that I did on this topic there is video of the Tri-State Warbird Museum firing up its big Allison 1,12 hp 12 cylinder V-1710 engine.  My wife and I had the privilege of being inside this aircraft early in its restoration, and it is delightful to see it completed and functional.  Of the 13,738 P-40’s of all variants produced between 1938 and 1944 only around 85 exist today—one at Wright Patterson and one at the Tri-State Warbird Museum.  I am so proud to live within 40 minutes of those two famous planes.

The plane represents more than military service, reliability, and World War II patriotism.  It was how the plane came about, and how it was used in tactics developed by Claire Chennault which reached every corner of the world by 1942 that tell the largest story and point to a particular secret of American ingenuity and the benefits of capitalism.  Chennault as a military commander had in common a trait that I love in the NFL football coach Sam Wyche of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bill Gates when he left college to start Microsoft, George Lucas when he moved out of Hollywood to create Star Wars, and Steve Jobs in pushing to create Apple—what they all have in common is that they got where they did not by complying to authority, but by challenging it—and often defying it.  The P-40 is more than just an airplane; it is a symbol of why America was so superior to other cultures, and why defiance is the American way over blind compliance to ridiculous authority.

When General Stilwell came to China where Claire Chennault was the proven authority—yet outranked the Flying Tiger leader, the expectation was one where Chennault was expected to bow to authority and respect the chain of command, which of course didn’t happen.  If Stilwell had his way America would have lost in China and Japan would have occupied and dominated Asia.  When Chennault was called from China at the end of the war it was then that communists overtook the country.  Chennault wanted to stay and fight the communists after the Japanese were defeated but American command wouldn’t allow it—and their folly cost America its soul from the Korean War to present.  Of course the Soviet Union was pushing the Vietnam War advancing communism which was overtaking all of Asia and was also feeding the counter-culture movement at American schools through KGB subversive penetration.  The “hippie” was a KGB creation and they are largely forming American foreign and domestic policy to this very day as they are now of age to be in senior management positions.  The pinnacle mistake that sent America on a downward spiral was when the defiance of Chennault was removed and the bureaucrats got their way.  That is when the problems started for The United States.  The key to American success is in defiance.  When that defiance is suppressed, America is just as worthless as every nation that does exactly what they are told by pinheaded fools and worthless politicians.

In the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge by Clint Eastwood the film opens with his character in trouble with the law—particularly for urinating on a police car.  This is to establish that Eastwood’s character is defiant, and something that American movie audiences can relate with.  In that film, Eastwood was essentially playing a variation to the kind of leader the real life Claire Lee Chennault was.  For a long time I wanted to write a novel about The Flying Tigers and have Eastwood play the role, but he’s too old now, and I am still working out the story details.  I don’t want to just write another World War II novel, I want to explore this theme of American defiance as the most important ingredient.  I would say that defiance is as important to American success as sugar is to cookies—it is a must have.

The rest of the world struggles because they are too structured, too compliant, and too obedient to worthless bureaucrats.  The reason that communism, socialism and every big government attempt does not work, is because institutional systems produce too many people like General Stilwell and not enough like General Chennault.  If General Patton had done as his superiors had instructed him to do, World War II would have been lost in Europe.  Britain, France, and all of Africa would have been dominated by the Italians and Germans.   It was Patton’s defiance that made him great, not his ability to follow orders.

In American music we like our artists defiant to the rules—that is because it is deeply inherit to the American psyche.  We do not admire compliance.  American heroes are not good soldiers who go down with the ship of sacrifice—but the ones who bark back at their chain of command and do what they think is right as individuals, not cogs in the wheel of society.   There are a lot of competing ideals floating around which confuse the issue, but for me it is quite clear whenever I see a P-40 Curtiss-Wright airplane what the key to American success was, and continues to be.  It is defiance like that of the Flying Tigers who were terribly outnumbered, and up against superior airplanes to paint that gaping mouth on the front of their planes to represent the swagger of American ingenuity, and defiance.  The Japanese would have never done anything like that to the planes of the Emperor.  German pilots would have never conceived of defacing the planes of Das Führer.  And even American pilots under Stilwell would have been frowned upon if Chennault had not let his men express themselves creatively before his arrival.  Chennault had set a standard that carried over into just about every branch of service for the next 60 years, as orthodox military generals frowned upon it.

I have told many stories about the original Pirates of the Caribbean led by Henry Morgan, another personal favorite of mine.  The privateers in early Jamaica were really no different from the Flying Tigers of China, the Henry Morgan pirates were essentially hired guns by the English Crown to prevent Spain and France from acquiring too much Aztec gold.  Morgan let his men be as free as possible and the results were staggering.  America was born on Morgan pirate vessels as Thomas Paine observed the antics first-hand and how much gold the King of England received from Morgan’s adventures.  The key again was in defiance.  The real Pirates of the Caribbean were so bold, and able to win against impossible odds because they were fighting for profit, and spitting in the eye of compliance.

I love the Flying Tigers and specifically the P-40 airplanes they used, because it is the most obvious example of why capitalism, defiance and free thinking destroy the rigid chain of command adhered to by the rest of the world.  There have been other successes since—many, and they all share an element of pushing against authority, not yielding to it.  Statistically, there isn’t any real evidence that any other way of thinking but that of the American is successful time and time again.  It is the only proven method of achievement that has a real track record of success.  So the million dollar question, or otherwise, the $17 trillion, which is the current U.S. debt, is why would America copy off the rest of the  world’s stupid submission to authority—because time and time again those authorities are corrupted with human error and not qualified to make the best decisions at the best times?  Why do we teach our children to follow orders, when they should be taught to give them?

  Why would we teach blind submission to compliance when history proves that is the quickest way to personal and national destruction?  And why would we teach military generals to be more like Stilwell when they should be more like Patton and Chennault?  The answer is that we shouldn’t.  We need to rethink our entire thought process in America and start with following what works, while setting to drift that which doesn’t.  Compliance to authority will not take anybody where they need to go and this needs to be embraced openly for the first time in American history instead of around the edges of our movies and music.  It is time that our schools teach defiance, our colleges teach conservative capitalism, and our businesses seek the renegade manager who wears business suits without soaks and has no interest in being in charge—except for the freedom to execute their individual visions and follow their blissful passions to the ends of the earth running over all the opposition that gets in their way.  It is time to admit that this is what it means to be an American, and to embrace it fully for the first time without the shameful judgments by the idiots who run the rest of the world.

Rich Hoffman  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com