by Hong Van
From Sept. 14 – 17, the 14th Air Service Group and the 987th Signal Company will be holding their combined reunion in Seattle.
This is the largest group of Chinese American Veterans from any era to hold a regular reunion. Chong Wa Hall – located on Seventh Avenue in the Chinatown/International District – will be the site of the gathering of these veterans.
Among the thousands of GI’s who disembarked in Seattle after World War II were several hundred young men who had been part of the all Chinese American 14th Air Service Group (ASG), 14th Air Force, US Army Air Corps – part of Chennault’s famed Flying Tigers.
The soldiers and those in their attached unit, the 987th Signal Company, US Army, were part of the only two all Chinese American outfits in World War II.
Seattle’s Chinatown, like every Chinese community across the nation, was extremely proud of their young service men and women and in honor of the returning veterans and in celebration of the end of World War II, the community gave the 14th ASG a huge banquet, complete with live music, at the Chong Wa Benevolent Association Hall in December 1945. .
