Margaret Mills Kincannon was born in Arkansas in April 1944, three weeks after her father’s arrival in the China-Burma-India theater. They met for the first time in November 1945.

Although he seldom spoke of his experiences in the war, she was intrigued by the few stories that he did tell. Margaret later realized that her opportunity to learn more about his military service was fast slipping away, so in 2013 she initiated a series of informal interviews with him. She began intensive research at the same time, and her discoveries aided in rekindling his long-buried memories.

The result is The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II, a comprehensive history of his Army Air Force squadron.

Margaret is a vice-chairman and the official historian of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, and she is a recognized authority on the Chinese-American Composite Wing in WWII. Her father, James H. “Hank” Mills, enlisted in the Army Air Corps after the attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, and he served in the 14th Air Force as a member of Major General Claire Lee Chennault’s “Flying Tigers” for virtually the entire war. During that time, he served as a B-25 crew chief on the ground, as well as an aerial gunner on combat missions.

Margaret graduated summa cum laude in 1976 from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Education with a Specialty in English, and she minored in Sociology. A retired English teacher, she now lives with her husband of 61 years, Tom, in Flower Mound, Texas. They have always enjoyed seeing the world together, and their most recent adventure was traveling to China, where they were able to visit several of the airfields where Margaret’s father was stationed during the war. They especially find pleasure in family gatherings with their son and daughter and their spouses, and their four grandchildren.