The name "Flying Tigers" came from news reports of the group's exploits, and the AVG was flashy, informal, and very effective. In its brief combat life - December 1941 to July 1942 - the AVG destroyed 296 Japanese aircraft in China and Burma.

When the U.S. Army Air Forces arrived in July 1942, Chennault's AVG was disbanded and a few of its members joined him in a regular army unit called the China Air Task Force. In March 1943, the Task Force became the nucleus of the new Fourteenth Air Force. Their supplies came over "the Hump," a dangerous 500-mile air route from India to China over the Himalayas.

"Japan can be defeated in China. It can be defeated by an Air Force so small that in other theaters it would be called ridiculous. I am confident that, given real authority in command of such an Air Force, I can cause the collapse of Japan." Brigadier General Claire Chennault

Despite supply problems, the Fourteenth Air Force grew from fewer than 200 aircraft to more than 700 planes by the end of the war. American airmen in China destroyed and damaged more than 4,000 Japanese aircraft during the war. They also sank more than a million tons of shipping and destroyed hundreds of locomotives, trucks, and bridges while helping to defeat the Japanese in China