Editing Claire Lee Chennault (section)

===Plan to bomb Japan===
A year before the U.S. officially entered the war, Chennault developed an ambitious plan for a sneak attack on Japanese bases. His Flying Tigers would use U.S. bombers and U.S. pilots, all with Chinese markings. He made the fantastic claim that a handful of fliers and planes could win the war single-handed.  The U.S. Army was opposed to that scheme and raised obstacles by noting that being able to reach Japan depended on Chiang's troops being able to build and protect airfields and bases close enough to Japan, which they doubted that he could do. It also had little confidence in Chennault.<ref>Michael Schaller,  "American Air Strategy in China, 1939–1941: The Origins of Clandestine Air Warfare." ''American Quarterly'' 28.1 (1976): 3–19 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2712474 online].</ref>

Despite the military advice, U.S. civilian leaders were captivated by the idea of China winning the war with Japan swiftly with only a few U.S. airmen and planes. It was adopted by top civilian officials including Treasury Secretary Morgenthau and President Roosevelt himself.{{#tag:ref|The official Army history notes that 23 July 1941 FDR "approved a Joint Board paper which recommended that the United States equip, man, and maintain the 500-plane Chinese Air Force proposed by Currie. The paper suggested for the force to embark on a vigorous program to be climaxed by the bombing of Japan in November 1941." [[Lauchlin Currie]] was the White House official dealing with China.<ref name="Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland">Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland. [http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-CBI-Mission/USA-CBI-Mission-1.html "China-Burma-India Theater: Stillwell's Mission to China"]. ''U.S. Army in World War II'', 1953, p. 23. Retrieved: September 17, 2014.</ref>|group=Note}} However, the American attack never took place: The Nationalist Chinese had not built and secured any runways or bases close enough to reach Japan, just as the military had warned. The bombers and crews arrived after the Japanese [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] in December 1941, and were used for the war in Burma, as they lacked the range to reach Japan from secure bases in China.<ref name="Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland"/><ref>Schaller, Michael. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2712474 "American Air Strategy in China, 1939–1941: The Origins of Clandestine Air Warfare."], ''American Quarterly''(JSTOR), Edition 28, issue 1, 1976. pp. 3–19.</ref><ref>Alan Armstrong, ''Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor'' (2006) is a popular version.</ref>