Arthur Chin

Major Arthur Chin was an American pilot and a Second Sino-Japanese War fighter ace.

Chin was born in Portland, Oregon to a Chinese father of Cantonese origin and a caucasian mother of Peruvian background. Motivated by the Japanese invasion of China, Chin enrolled in flight school in 1932. Along with 15 other Chinese Americans, he left for China and joined the Guangdong Provincial Air Force as the first and original group of American volunteer combat aviators. After training in Munich Germany, he destroyed nine enemy aircraft from 1937-1939. In 1939, while flying a Gloster Gladiator, the fighter in which he scored most of his aerial kills, he was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Although he parachuted to safety, he suffered serious burn injuries. Nevertheless, after several years of surgery and recovery, he returned to China in 1944 to fly supplies over the Himalayas, a route known as the "Hump".

Chin is now recognized as America's first ace in World War II. A half-century after the war ended, the U.S. government recognized Chin as an American veteran by awarding him the Distinguished Flying Cross. About a month after Arthur Chin died, on October 4 1997, he was immortalized at the Hall of Fame of the American Airpower Heritage Museum in Midland, Texas as the first American ace, and an officially recognized Chinese American World War II hero.