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THE TIMES-PICAYUNE NEW ORLEANS STATES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 1942

To Fly Here

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CHINESE ACTRESS, AVIATRIX TO FLY HERE FOR BENEFIT
Miss Le Ya-Ching to Pilot Plane With Miss Wong as Passenger

With Anna May Wong, Chinese film star as passenger, Miss Le Ya-Ching will fly her plane to New Orleans to participate January 20 in the Chinese night of "It's Fun to Be Free," patriotic pageant to be presented at the St. Charles theater under 'joint' auspices of the New Orleans chapters of Fight for Freedom and the Committee to Defend America.

The pageant will begin January 19 and last a week, according to Walter C. Carey, general chairman. The night of January 20 will be dedicated to China. Other nations at war for democracy will be honored at performances throughout the week, he explained.

Miss Ya-Ching visited New Orleans three years ago on a 10,000-mile tour of the United States in behalf of Chinese women and children refugees. At that time, she was wearing a gold caterpillar pin, emblematic of membership in the exclusive American Caterpillar Club, a club composed of fliers who have been forced to bail out by parachute to save their lives.

The Chinese flier started her lessons in Switzerland but was awarded her pilot's license in San Francisco. After Japan invaded her homeland, she carried medicine by plane through the war zones, nursed the wounded and lived in a city under bombardment.

Miss Wong had wired Mr. Carey that she will present a skit depicting China's part in the present war.

The pageant, designed as a civilian morale rouser, according to Mr. Carey, will include 50 tableaux, exactly as presented in New York's Madison Square Garden, when 17,000 persons were in attendance.