Claire Chennault School History
Opened: 1956
Closed: 1962
Claire Lee Chennault School, established in Ping Tung in 1956, was named for the leader of the “Flying Tigers”. Chennault became air advisor to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in 1937 and took command of the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force in China in 1948.
Kenneth E. Halter taught 16 dependent children in grades one through eight in a rented house the first year of the school. High school students commuted to Wainwright High School in Tainan. In September 1960, a one-room school building was completed and occupied. In 1961, the entire student body numbered eleven. Chennault remained a one-teacher school serving grades one to eight until its closing on July 1, 1962 when all military personnel were withdrawn from Taiwan.
Based on information from DoDDS-Pacific Region 1946-1986