Hi, I'm looking for information on a group of pilots from World War 2 that I read somewhere on Cracked or something similar long ago.
Basically from what I can remember is they were a from the US and as described, they had the most beat up, derelict planes out of anyone. I believe what I remember reading was they would cut the planes up and reinforce them with wood, and mount different guns that they had laying around onto their planes.
I hope I gave enough information for something to be found, this has been my white whale for the longest time. Thanks!
The two that perhaps fit the bill are the American Volunteer Group, and the CACTUS Air Force.
The AVG better known as the Flying Tigers were essentially just a group of mercenaries in the service of the Chinese Nationalists, with the clandestine backing of the US government. They fought at the end of a tenuous and remote logistics trail in East Asia, and even when folded back into the regular forces were low on just about everything.
The CACTUS Air Force then is the name given to the multi service group of squadrons operating from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. CACTUS was the islands codename. Between the daily bombing runs, IJA artillery, and IJN night bombardments the aircraft took a beating.
Numerous wrecks were used for parts and it was experimented with using wooden wheels on SBD dive bombers due to failures on landing.