The Shadow Tiger

Award-winning book designed in a unique style and packed with information

The Shadow Tiger: Billy McDonald, Wingman to Chennault

Mac was born to fly

The Shadow Tiger is the story of a remarkable career, and a man who bore witness to some of the twentieth century’s historic events and pivotal characters. Mac tells us the tale in his own words through photos, correspondence and manuscripts uncovered by his family. 

Billy McDonald of Birmingham, Alabama, had an adventurous and dangerous career as a pilot in the Golden Age of Flight, and into World War II.

He jumped from military cadet to wingman in Claire Lee Chennault’s famed aerobatic flying group Three Men on a Flying Trapeze while in the Army Air Corps in the early 1930s.

In 1936, he and fellow Trapezer Luke Williamson took Chennault’s advice and went to China to train pilots in the Chinese Air Force for its imminent war with Japan. China’s wide-open skies were perfect for the young pilot.

Chennault joined Mac and the CAF in 1937. The Second Sino-Japanese War began within weeks of his arrival. The Chinese pilots began to fly in battles against the better-prepared and equipped Japanese air force. Rumors still abound that both Mac and Chennault also flew combat missions in the early part of the war, perhaps flying Chennault’s legendary Hawk 75 Special against the Japanese over Nanking in 1937.

After three years as CAF instructor in advanced fighter tactics, Mac moved to China National Airline Corporation (CNAC) to fly unarmed cargo planes. Mac loved the flying challenges – typhoons, sand and lightning storms, blizzards and hard landing, and uncharted mountains. He began ferrying world-famous passengers like Hemingway and non-military cargo.

In 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong and brought the United States into World War II. After Pearl Harbor, CNAC became a supply wing for the military of both China and the U.S., hauling gasoline, gunpowder and gold over The Hump (Himalayas) for Chennault’s Flying Tigers and the Chinese Army.

Mac evacuated people out of Hong Kong flying in and out over the heads of the advancing Japanese army; had regular routes through the war zone; landed big cargo planes on tiny strips in islands in the Yangtze River and flew big cargo planes off tiny sandbars, hoping not to crash into the crocodile-infested river — these were the best days of his life!

Mac also became chief pilot at CNAC and was a photographer. Thousands of documents and photographs provided the raw material for The Shadow Tiger.