Stephen Bonner, an ace US fighter pilot and one of the last surviving members of the swashbuckling “Flying Tigers” who fought the Japanese for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during World War II, has died, friends and colleagues announced on Thursday.
He was 103.
The Flying Tigers, an assembly of US volunteer fighter pilots forming the Aviation Volunteer Group based in Kunming, China, operated out of what was then Burma in the early 1940s in support of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) against the Japanese, conducting dangerous missions over Japanese-occupied China and shooting down hundreds of enemy bombers.
They initially operated as mercenaries with the tacit support of the US government, given Washington’s official neutrality toward imperial Japan before the attacks on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in late 1941.
Serving under US Army lieutenant general Claire Chennault — who led the Republic of China (ROC) Air Force during the war before the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in the Chinese Civil War — in 1943 and 1944, Bonner flew “five confirmed and five probable aerial victories, and additionally was credited with damaging two more fighters and bombers,” Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation chairman Jeff Green said.
“With his remarkable longevity, Steve would become the last living ‘Fighter Ace’ to have flown in China during the Second World War,” Green said, describing him as a “gallant soldier and a Christian gentleman.”
Later in life, Bonner became an advocate for the commemoration of the Flying Tigers’ legacy and US-China dialogue, founding the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation and receiving the Congressional Gold Medal.
He also visited China with fellow veterans in 2005, where they were named honorary citizens of Kunming.
Public Television Service produced a documentary series on the Flying Tigers, which operated in the Chinese-Burma-India region — known as the CBI Theater — during World War II.
“The Flying Tigers squadron forms a very important chapter in Taiwan’s wartime history, where the Republic of China and the US air forces worked together with outstanding camaraderie, spirit and cooperative fellowship,” then-ROC Air Force chief of staff Liu Shou-jen (劉守仁) said when the series was first aired in 2014.
Additional reporting by staff writer
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS