Flying Tigers's actions were heroic

No, they are not a myth about actual tigers with wings. They were a group of American pilots who waged a secret war against Japan prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War. 

This story takes plan in the summer of 1941 when a group of young American men left behind a country still at peace and used false identity papers to travel across the Pacific Ocean to a run-down air base in Burma. 

Led by the legendary Army pilot, Claire Chennault, they were sent there to secretly defend  America's desperate Chinese allies who were being attacked by Japan. But in December the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and they became the first group of Americans to directly take on the Japanese war machine in combat, shooting down scores of enemy aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand and China.

One of these pilots was a man named "Pappy Boyington," who was from Coeur d'Alene. The airfield in Coeur d'Alene is now named after him.

Roger Gregory is a Vietnam veteran and business owner in Priest River.