Return of the Flying Tigers

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Return of the Flying Tigers is the ninth story arc in the Franco-Belgian comic book series Buck Danny, published by Jean-Michel Charlier and Victor Hubinon.

<i>Buck Danny</i> comic book album

Buck Danny is a Franco-Belgian comics series about a military flying ace and his two sidekicks serving in the United States Navy or the United States Air Force. The series is noted for its realism both in the drawings and the descriptions of air force procedures as part of the storyline. In particular the aircraft depicted are extremely accurate. Mixing historical references with fiction, Buck Danny is one of the most important 'classic' Franco-Belgian comic strips. Starting in 1947, the first albums were set against the backdrop of World War II, but from 1954 onwards, the series started to play in 'the present' and has so ever since. Like this, the series reads as a chronology of military aviation as well as the events that were catching people's imagination at the time of publishing, ranging from the Korean war, the cold war, UFO's, international terrorism and drug running, the space race, rogue atomic bombs, the collapse of the Soviet bloc and recently the conflicts in Sarajevo and Afghanistan.

Jean-Michel Charlier was a Belgian comics writer. He was a co-founder of the famed Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote.

Victor Hubinon was a Belgian comic-book artist, best known for the series Buck Danny and Redbeard.

Contents

Publication history

Like all of the Buck Danny stories, the "Return of the Flying Tigers" story arc was initially released in three separate albums; "Return of the Flying Tigers", "Flying Tigers to the Rescue", released in 1960, and "Flying Tigers versus Pirates", in 1961. [1] During the nineties, the series was re-released and they were recombined into a single album, named after the first novel.

Plot

Return of the Flying Tigers

The U.S.S. Saratoga carrier battle group, of which Danny is the current CAG, is abruptly ordered to Manila harbour in the South China Sea. There, the admiral and Danny are informed that the CIA has been tracing an alarming increase in arms sales (including modern warplanes) to the region, which inexplicably are not meant for any of local governments. Washington fears that an aggression is imminent, and dispatched the Saratoga for this eventuality.

Carrier battle group

A carrier battle group (CVBG) consists of an aircraft carrier and its large number of escorts, together defining the group. The first naval task forces built around carriers appeared just prior to and during World War II. The Imperial Japanese Navy, IJN, was the first to assemble a large number of carriers into a single task force, known as Kido Butai. This task force was used with devastating effect in the Imperial Japanese Navy's Attack on Pearl Harbor. Kido Butai operated as the IJN's main carrier battle group until four of its carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway. In contrast, the United States Navy deployed its large carriers in separate formations, with each carrier assigned its own cruiser and destroyer escorts. These single-carrier formations would often be paired or grouped together for certain assignments, most notably the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway. By 1943, however, large numbers of fleet and light carriers became available, which required larger formations of three or four carriers. These groups eventually formed the Fast Carrier Task Force, which became the primary battle unit of the U.S. Fifth and Third Fleets.

Manila Capital / Highly Urbanized City in National Capital Region, Philippines

Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the capital of the Philippines. It is the most densely populated city proper in the world. It was the first chartered city by virtue of the Philippine Commission Act 183 on July 31, 1901 and gained autonomy with the passage of Republic Act No. 409 or the "Revised Charter of the City of Manila" on June 18, 1949. Manila, alongside Mexico and Madrid are considered the world's original set of Global Cities due to Manila's commercial networks being the first to traverse the Pacific Ocean, thus connecting Asia with the Spanish Americas, marking the first time in world history when an uninterrupted chain of trade routes circled the planet. Manila has been damaged by and rebuilt from wars more times than the famed city of Troy and it is also the second most natural disaster afflicted capital city in the world next to Tokyo yet it is simultaneously among the most populous and most wealthy cities in Southeast Asia.

South China Sea A marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean from the Karimata and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan

The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Karimata and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres (1,400,000 sq mi). The sea carries tremendous strategic importance; one-third of the world's shipping passes through it, carrying over $3 trillion in trade each year, it contains lucrative fisheries, which are crucial for the food security of millions in Southeast Asia. Huge oil and gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed.

The carrier's planes are put on alert the same night in an attempt to intercept illicit flights in the region; while on duty, they identify, but then lose, a suspicious cargo plane flying towards Southeast Asia. The next day, Danny takes a Phantom jet and investigates some of the islands where the cargo might have landed; he is shot at above one of them and loses contact with the Saratoga. When Tumbler and Tuckson investigate, they discover an entire squadron of unidentified jets fleeing the area, with Danny nowhere in sight.

A search and rescue is immediately organized, but new orders from Washington interrupt it after only two days. The Saratoga has been ordered to proceed with all due haste to the Southeast Asian nation of Vien Tan, where a revolution has just begun, supported by the same jets and heavy armament that CIA has been tracing. Despite this, the admiral allows Tumb and Sonny one last search of the area; they finally locate Danny and bring him back on board, where the admiral informs him that his general's stars may be at the end of the upcoming adventure. [2]

Flying Tigers to the Rescue

The novel opens with the admiral briefing his pilots on the situation. A criminal cartel has orchestrated a revolution against the U.S.-allied king of Vien Tan, in order to control the vital resources in his country's soil. Since the U.S. cannot intervene officially, they have agreed to lend thirty A-4 Skyhawks and pilots to the Vientanese, who will fight under the flag of the defunct Flying Tigers. (Unknown to the admiral, one of the thirty pilots, Dave Stimson, has a family in Vien Tan living in rebel-occupied country).

Flying Tigers Group of American military pilots who flew for the Republic of China Air Force in 1941-42

The First American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC), recruited under President Franklin Roosevelt's authority before Pearl Harbor and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The aircraft were to fly with Chinese colors but be under American control. The mission was to bomb Japan and defend China but many delays meant they flew in combat after the US and Japan declared war.

The new Flying Tigers land at their airbase and find themselves beset by problems. On the one hand, the rebels are well trained, well led and well informed, while on the other, the Americans are severely hindered by the incompetence of the Vientanese staff officers they serve under. To make matters worse, they eventually discover that the mercenary pilots they face are being led by an old enemy; Lady X, whom they thought to have killed a few years earlier. Danny sets the Tigers' primary goal as locating and destroying the enemy fighter base.

Meanwhile, Stimson, quietly helped by Sonny and a local peasant, Thi Ba, tries to send a message to his family in the north; instead, Thi Ba is captured by the rebels, who instantly understand the uses they can make of him. With the information he reveals to them, they locate Stimson's wife and force her to write a letter meant to draw her husband into a trap. Despite his wariness, Sonny Tuckson agrees to fly into the north with Stimson and try to save his family; instead, they are captured and imprisoned by the rebels.

Flying Tigers versus Pirates

After her partial success in the previous novel, Lady X now plans to finish the war by crushing the Flying Tigers in one blow. On the one hand, she has the rebel propaganda broadcasts announce the capture and upcoming execution of Tuckson and Stimson; on the other, using Thi Ba, she lets false information trickle to Danny in the hopes of drawing out the entire squadron and destroying it.

With tempers running high, many of the pilots call for an out and out frontal assault; but Danny, wary of another trap, organizes his own recon into enemy territory with the help of Vientanese royal soldiers. The latter manage to get in touch with the prisoners, and learn among other things of Thi Ba's treason, which they report to headquarters. With this new information, Danny puts together another rescue plan, this one in cooperation with the Vientanese soldiers rather than Thi Ba and his associates.

The operation goes off without a hitch until the very end; one of the two rescue helicopters is disabled on takeoff, and the remaining one is too small to accommodate everyone. Sonny Tuckson remains with Souva, the Vientanese commander, and they make their way back to base on foot. This proves harder than anticipated, and becomes doubly so for Sonny when Souva is killed by a landmine. After being lost in the jungle for a week, he miraculously stumbles upon Lady X's airbase, a heavily protected airstrip in the middle of a mountain range.

After nightfall, he steals one of the rebel jets and flies it back to the Flying Tiger base. Having finally located their enemies' base, the Tigers take off as soon as possible; approaching through a narrow and undefended canyon identified earlier on by Sonny, they catch the rebels unawares and destroy the entire airbase with napalm bombs. Without its aerial support, the rebellion collapses quickly; the novel concludes after the war's end with Sonny being decorated for bravery by the Vientanese king.

Behind the scenes

This story arc was heavily influenced by media censorship in France, "Buck Danny"'s biggest market, which had already resulted in the banning of the two Korean War novels. [3] The Indochina War and its repercussions, including U.S. involvement in the region, had also been banned from French popular literature; thus Charlier was forced to draft a strictly fictional story, with no basis in international reality. The imaginary nation of Vien Tan stands in for Vietnam; the war between the communists and the Diem regime was replaced by a palace quarrel between a king and his rebellious nephew; and the villains' backers, rather than the Soviet Union, were made to be an unnamed and therefore apolitical criminal organization (the same role fulfilled by SPECTRE in the Bond movies of the same era). [4]

The Flying Tigers' part in the story, however, was another matter; it was largely inspired by General Claire Lee Chennault's very real activities after 1945. At the end of World War Two, the General purchased several surplus military aircraft to create the Civil Air Transport (later Air America), an officially private company which in fact worked for the CIA and with other Western and allied governments throughout the Chinese Civil War, Korean War, First Indochina War, and Vietnam War. According to Charlier, Chennault also planned to form a combat unit, the International Volunteer Group, which would have contained volunteers of any nationality and lent its services to any government threatened by the spread of communism. It was on these groups, as well as the historic Flying Tigers, that Buck's unofficial squadron was based. The story was also a nostalgic return to the comic book's beginnings, since Danny, Tumbler and Tuckson had originally met while serving in Chennault's command during the war.

Characters

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References

  1. ↑ Buck Danny
  2. ↑ It is a running joke in the series that Buck Danny has been stuck at the rank of naval Commander for forty years; were he to rise any higher, he would lose his flying privileges and effectively end the comic book.
  3. ↑ "La Guerre de Corée", editor's notes on the first page
  4. ↑ "Le Retour des Tigres Volants", editor's notes on the first page
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