C.H. “Link” Laughlin was born December 30, 1916 in Independence, Missouri and raised nearby in Olathe, Kansas and later attended Westminster College in Missouri.
By 1940, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corp Reserves and attended flight training in Pensacola and just a year later, in June 1941, he accepted an assignment as a Flight Instructor. Just two months later in August, he resigned his commission to join the AVG. By November of that same year, he was in Rangoon, Burma, assigned to the Hell’s Angels Squadron. After the AVG Flying Tigers disbanded, Laughlin remained in China as a pilot for the CNAC.
Laughlin returned to the US in early 1944, back at the US Marine Corps Reserves, received a promotion to Major and remained at Cherry Point NAS until October 1945 when he got the call to join his AVG friends in a new venture in what was to become the Flying Tiger Line. Laughlin was an original investor with Robert Prescott but didn’t stay with the airline for very long.
By the 1950s, Laughlin moved to Miami, FL, and remained in the Marine Corps Reserves and retired in December 1978 as a Colonel. Upon retirement, he got involved in real estate, spent time as an editor for a boating magazine, and also a freelance writer.
He died in March 1995 and buried at Pensacola with full honors.