Chinese at Thunderbird

At Thunderbird Field, near Phoenix, Ariz., where U.S. student flyers are now stationed, arrived 50 Chinese, prospective airmen. Within the next few months they will be followed by several hundred others.

Their course, like that of the R.A.F. candidates training at British schools in the U.S., will run through 20 weeks. At the end of this intensive course, they should be the best Chinese flyers in the world, able to carry the war to Japanese territory, and fight off bombers attacking the Burma Road, come hell or high water.

Short on mechanical training, most Chinese flyers up till now have been trained in a hodgepodge of Chinese, Russian and U.S. methods. In U.S. air schools, under Army-supervised private instructors, they will be taught to handle U.S. Lend-Lease bombers and fighters in the manner to which the planes have been accustomed. Anticipated output of Chinese airmen at Thunderbird, which is operated by Southwest Airways, Inc.: 200 Chinese trainees every 20 weeks.

The Chinese students at Thunderbird last week were traditionally inscrutable. Mum on all matters, they admitted only that they were "velly happy."

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