World War II Database

1. Nancy McDonald says:
1 Mar 2017 12:56:35 PM

I saw your review on “Forgotten Ally”.
My husband, Billy McDonald,wrote the book "The Shadow Tiger Billy McDonald Wingman to Chennault.” Billy will be writing the rest of this message to make it easier to understand.
Billy McDonald Jr. was my father who started the book in 1977 had a stroke in less than a month and loss the ability to speak or use his right hand.
In 2010 I found 30,000 original documents in very poor condition.
While I knew from him many of his stories I was shocked to find so much that he did not talk about.
I did not know he was a combat pilot in China and paid in gold for each Japanese plane shot down.
I did not know he was sent on a Spy mission to Japan to pick up Chennault and bring him back to China.
I did not know he had armed encounters on 112 occasions with armed Japanese planes in Chennault’s Hawk 75.
Most important was to find that on Dec. 8, 1941 upon hearing of the Japanese attacks on Pearl and Hong Kong he flew his CNAC plane load of passengers from Rangoon
to Toungoo to meet with Chennault for a 10 minute visit on the edge of the runway with 33 P40’s on each side of the runway with engines running as they expected a Japanese attack at any time.
He then flew to Chungking dropped off his passengers and Stewardess. He was told specifically not to go to Hong Kong since he might have the only CNAC plane left.
He immediately flew to Hong Kong and landed at 1:00 am on Dec. 9th in a blacked out city. He found all crew alive and the Japanese had failed to bomb the Hangers that had 3 new DC 3’s.
In one hour he began the airlift of 275 civilians over the next 4 days. He helped CNAC relocate to Calcutta, got two more planes and landed at Midnight on Dec. 18th in Toungoo to pick up Chennault and the ground crews for the first and second squadrons of the AVG.
He flew them to Kunming. On Dec. 19, 1941 the P40’s flew in and on Dec. 20, 1941 11 Japanese bombers were surprised by the AVG. Only 1 of the 11 made it back to base. Kunming was never bombed again.
It was from Kunming that the Japanese attempt to take the city was stopped in two daring raids lead by Tex Hill. Then the Japanese Special Forces turned around and left.
If Kunming had fallen, Chungking would have fallen and China would have been out of the war freeing 1 million Japanese troops to fight in the pacific. It is probable that they would have conscripted several million Chinese troops to flight on their side.
Had McDonald left Chennault in Toungoo the AVG would have died there as there were no other planes in China that could have moved them before Japan over ran Burma.
When the AVG disbanded McDonald was Asst. Chief Pilot and hired 17 pilots to fly for CNAC.

The books is based on first hand letters he wrote every two weeks to document his adventures.
His time flying over the Hump lead to some hair raising flights that are in the book.

My wife Nancy and I have sold just over 900 books in 7 months. I have 15 books signings on the books for this year.
Dan Ford gave me a nice review and has been a good friend.

I took great pains to find a great editor Barbara Evenson who lived with us for one year and agreed to be co-author. She pressed me on why I wanted her and I said because you will not put your name on something that is not excellent.
As you can tell I am proud of the book and would be honored to send you a copy if you would give it an honest review with the hope that it could be put on Amazon or any site you are associated with.

2. Glenn Ivers says:
28 Oct 2020 09:54:04 PM

I will soon be publishing a novel about the Battle of the Bulge, focusing on Bastogne and the characters surrounding it. I would like to commission a reviewer to review the book, please email me.