WWII story of U.S. volunteers in China retold in NYC theater

Seventy-seven years after the First American Volunteer Group (AVG) joined the Second World War, a play comes to New York City to unfold the stories of the pilots who volunteered to fight shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese people against invaders. 

The play, named Flying Tiger Flying Away, revolves around three young pilots from the AVG, also known as Flying Tigers, and two Chinese volunteer nurses in southwest China's Yunnan Province. 

On one of western China's most healthful plateaus General Chennault's pilots, combat crews, maintenance men, and officers and men who have been training and working with the Chinese Armies get a chance to relax at a Rest Camp for a ten-day to two week Get-away from the rigors of American Army life in China. Named after a former AVG and Army ace, Maj. Frank Schiel, Prescott, Arizona, who was killed in action, "Camp Schiel" has basketball courts, boats, guns, and tennis courts in use the day long. The trucks leaving for the drive into the mountains to the camp are packed with men who have sweated out the war and are taking a short respite before renewing their individual and combined blows at the Japanese. A group of G.I.’s carry water Chinese style to get some exercise as collies sit on the roadside and watch in China, May 27, 1944. In Indian file the soldiers are left to right; Pvt. Robert C. Burns, Flushing, N.Y.; Sgt. Chas. E. Ballard, Ashville, N.C.; Cpl. Wm. D. Kirk, Omaha, Neb.; Sgt. Murdock, J. Platner, Altue, Okla.; and Sgt. Earle F. Perkins, Miami, Fla. [Photo: AP/Frank Cancellare]

The lives of these five young people are intertwined and entirely changed because of the war. Sixty years later, those who are alive reunite in Kunming. Long buried secrets are solved and they begin writing new chapters in their lives.

Zhang Xi, the play's director and playwright, who drew on a decade of research and interviews on war to write the story of Flying Tigers, said the play is a cross-cultural attempt to advocate world peace.

She said the production will allow the audience to recall the past memories when Chinese and U.S. people joined hands to pursue peace.

The play had its debut on Wednesday night at the Theatre at Saint Peter's. It will run through Friday.