The CIA pilots who made the wildly dangerous airdrops to besieged French troops at Dienbienphu in 1954 were technically employees of what was tecnically a Chinese civil airline, the Taiwan registered CAT. This was later and more famously known as Air America. The planes themselves carried spurious Chinese registration numbers and equally fictitious French military markings but were actually on loan from the US Air Force.The 7 surviving pilots were awarded the French Legion of Honor 50 years later.