In Southeast Asia, Japan's three-year war with China seemed to be drawing close to its deadly conclusion. Chiang Kai-Shek was desperate for air power to stem the tide of certain defeat; he needed planes, pilots and ground support personnel. Chiang turned to a neutral United States for help and his plea was answered on Dec. 23, 1940 when president Franklin Roosevelt signed a secret order granting Chiang's request.

Seeking adventure in the land of Kipling, two young pilots from Texas resign their commissions in the U.S. Army Air Corp and join the American Volunteer Group to fight for China. In the cockpits of their Curtis-Wright P-40 fighters, tiger shark teeth painted menacingly beneath the nose spinners, Cotton Kirkland, Gil Dawson and others will gain world-wide fame in the hostile skies over China by another designation -- as the fabled Flying Tigers.

This is their story.