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Cranston Fine Arts  Aviation Art World War Two Veteran Signatures United States M  Mott, Charles |
Flight Leader Charles D Mott
Charles D. Mott was one of the first Americans to join the Flying Tigers that battled the Japanese during World War II. A native of Powelton and a 1932 graduate of West Philadelphia High School, he had dreams as a young man of being a pilot. Charles D. Mott was studying for his bachelors degree in civil engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, he was in the Army ROTC. After graduating in 1936, he joined the Navy. He received his wings two years later and was assigned as an aircraft-carrier dive bomber pilot. He served three years in the Fleet as a Dive Bomber pilot of Bombing Three aboard carriers Ranger, Saratoga and Lexington. Charlie resigned from the Navy in June, 1941 and volunterred for the American Volunteer Group the Flying Tigers. After the 2nd Squadron was deployed to Rangoon in late December 1941, he flew experimental but ineffective missions against night attacks because close radar control was not available. The AVG then seized the initiative by attacking Japanese airfields in Thailand. While leading an attack on the airfield at Mesoht, Thailand, he was shot down by ground fire and captured, severely wounded. He was the first allied pilot to be captured in Asia. The Japanese let him recuperate from his wounds and tropical fevers and in July, 1942 put him in with British troops captured at Singapore. For three years he experienced the conditions in POW camps along the River Kwai railway and was repatriated at the end of the war. Charles D. Mott was recommissioned into the regular Navy and completed a Naval Aviator career of Lt. through Captain, specializing in ordnance and guided missiles. His Navy career included command of a four-engine squadron and operations officer of an attack carrier. He was the planning officer in the 7th Fleet, responsible for the joint China (Taiwan) resupply Quemoy during the 1958 incident and was honored by the Chinese with the Cloud and Banner Medal. He retired from the Navy in 1963. Flight Leader Charles D Mott died on July 29th 2004 of a stroke at home in Vienna, Va USA at the age of 89.
| Flight Leader Charles D Mott - Signed Aviation Art |
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Spoiling the Party by Stan Stokes. Claire Chennaults American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers) continues to capture the imagination and interest of aviation history buffs more than fifty years after they flew combat missions for the Chinese Air Force. Composed of about ninety pilots and another 200 ground support personnel, the Tigers arrived in China in mid-1941. Flying Curtiss P-40s that had been rerouted from Britain to China, the Tigers flew from December of 1941 until mid-1942. Engaging a numerically superior Japanese force over a very wide front, the AVG was officially credited with downing 299 Japanese aircraft in aerial combat, and an additional 240 aircraft destroyed during ground attack missions. The Flying Tigers slowed the Japanese conquest in China, and caused Japan to focus more resources on this theater of operations than they had planned. Stan Stokes painting depicts a three-plane raid of a Japanese airstrip near Tak, Thailand. Early in the morning of January 3, 1942, three 2 d Pursuit Squadron (Panda Bear) P-40s based at Mingaladon piloted by Tex Hill, Jim Howard, and Scarsdale Jack Newkirk attacked the airfield while the Japanese pilots appeared to celebrating the completion of their dawn attack at an RAF airfield at Moulmein. Circling around the field to get the sun at their backs the P-40s swooped low over the field at 250-MPH. A number of Japanese Army Air Force Nates were on the ground and were taken by surprise. Some ceremony was taking place and there were grandstands with spectators. The guests got quite an air show that morning! The Flying Tiger pilots were focused on the vulnerable targets on the ground, that they didn't initially realize that other Japanese aircraft were in the air, and had not yet landed. The late Jim Howard (who won the only Medal of Honor awarded to an Eighth Air Force fighter pilot later in the War) was focused on the vulnerable aircraft on the ground, and failed to notice a Nate on his tail. Tex Hill broke off a strafing attack to come to Howards aid, and downed the Japanese aircraft. Newark would also claim an aerial victory during the fracas. Near the end of the attack Jim Howards engine died, and he circled for a belly landing on the strip he had just mauled. Seconds before putting his Tomahawk on the ground, the Allison sputtered to life, and the pilot slipped away. When the three Panda Bear pilots returned to Minaladon, they celebrated their victory and relived their attack in words. Jim Howard was reluctant to admit that Tex Hill had shot a Japanese aircraft off of his tail. To solve the argument they went out to the flight line. There were eleven bullet holes in the tail end of Howards aircraft. An inspection also revealed no less than thirty-three bullet holes in the wings of Hills aircraft. |
Summer of 42 by John D Shaw. In this superb tribute to one of the most famous fighter units of WWII the serenity of the beautiful Li River is broken as P40 Tomahawks of the AVG Flying Tigers, bearing their famous shark-mouth motif, return to base at Kweilin. |
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