American Volunteer Group - Chinese Pilots Chit, 1941 - 1942.
This cloth patch has a printed national flag of China on it and an inscription featuring the dates 1941 to 1942. After the Japanese invasion of China, the aviators of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) were issued with a silk cloth bearing the Chinese national flag and a Chinese inscription. These symbols were intended to identify the nationality of airmen to the Chinese nationals, in the hope that they might provide aid if a pilot was shot down in the Chinese countryside.

They were officially called the first American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force but they were often better known by their nickname of the "Flying Tigers. The group helped the Nationalist forces defend against the Japanese invasion on behalf of the Chinese. However, as the American presence grew, many pilots and other air crewmen began to acquire locally fabricated chits like this example. These chits, sometimes called the airman's "Last Hope", all had similar inscriptions on that roughly translate to: [I have] come to China to aid in the war effort [against the Japanese]. [I am] a foreigner, an American. The army and civilians form a single group. Please rescue [me]. Air Force Council.

These chits became ubiquitous among the AVG after America's entrance into World War II. American airmen serving in the China- Burma-India Theater copied them and added the United States flag and a China-Burma-India insignia.

It is often and wrongly thought that the idea for the chits originated with the "Flying Tigers" but this type of flag was actually already in use in Asia by Western aviators and they are thought to have originated with British pilots flying in Mesopotamia during the First World War.

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