; and the Hells Canyon Massacre of 1887 where 34 Chinese goldminers were ambushed and murdered in Hells Canyon, Oregon. (6) There were only 78,000 Chinese Americans living on the United States mainland, with 29,000 living in Hawaii, at the start of World War II as a result of Federal and State legislation and judicial decisions. (7) Despite the anti-Chinese discrimination at the time, as many as 20,000 Chinese Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. Approximately forty percent (40 percent) of those who served were not United States citizens due to the laws that denied U.S. citizenship for persons of Chinese descent. (8) Chinese Americans, although small in numbers, made important contributions to the World War II effort. (9) Of the total Chinese Americans serving, approximately 25 percent served in the U.S. Army Air Force/Corps, with some sent to the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater with the 14th Air Service Group. (10) The remainder served in all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces in all four theaters of war. (11) The first all Chinese-American group was the 14th Air Service Group, 859th Signal Corps in the CBI theater which enabled extensive and effective operations against the Japanese military in China. (12) Chinese Americans are widely acknowledged for their role in the Army’s 14th Air Force, 23rd Fighter Group, widely known as the Flying Tigers. (13) The Flying Tigers eventually established American air superiority in China and supported cargo flights from India to China over The Hump . (14) Chinese Americans assigned to the CBI theater made transoceanic journeys through hostile territories, and were subject to enemy attack while at sea and in the air. (15) In the Pacific Theater, Chinese Americans were in ground, air, and ocean combat and support roles throughout the Pacific including New Guinea, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Philippines, Marianas, and Aleutian Islands. (16) Throughout the Pacific and CBI theaters, they performed vital functions in translating