As a small thought to your last posting @Gary Ridenour, I have had a thought for sometime and have even mentioned it although I have no proof that my personal ideas are valid. I'm not much into conspiracy theories but this one I believe has a bit of merit to it but is just conjecture on my part. Even though we did help sponsor some sanctions against Japan we also had a military presence in China which, I believe, had a lot to do with a type of retaliatory move by Japan. Although our pilots (and ground crews) were known as mercenaries, I really believe that the U.S. government allowed some of our pilots to "resign" and join such groups as the well known "black sheep" squadron in defence of China who was being openly attacked by Japan. Many such covert actions were and are being performed by our government to the tune of not openly recognizing nor acknowledging a U.S. involvement in a particular action against another country. American pilots who flew in defence of China was a well known item of fact no matter the affiliation of those pilots in regard to which country they flew for. It wouldn't be the first time that the U.S. was "not involved" in a war, but heavily uh.......interested. Just a thought............
I think your talking about the flying tigers or the AVG unit. which was composed of pilots from the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC), recruited under presidential authority and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The shark-faced nose art of the Flying Tigers remains among the most recognizable image of any individual combat aircraft or combat unit of World War II. The members of the group had contracts with salaries ranging from $250 a month for a mechanic to $750 for a squadron commander, roughly three times what they had been making in the U.S. forces. While it accepted some civilian volunteers for its headquarters and ground crew, the AVG recruited most of its staff from the U.S. military. Pilots got paid a bonus for every Japanese plane shot down. after Pearl Harbor most all members went back into full service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers Boyington's black sheep squadron link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappy_Boyington