Diary pages from this date

Another air raid today, we distinctly heard bombs,and saw ack-ack fire.   Must have been big bombs for us to hear all this way, think they were at Taikoo. Dreadful to think of the poor Chinese casualties there must be at the docks and other places.

Dr Y-E said Mabel's heart beats are showing through her skin, said it's pushing against the chest wall and isn't right.

Black-out 10.45 p.m.

About noon when third raid. Much machine gunning. Great excitement. Early blackout. Rumour one American plane shot down. Chinese airmen said in downed American machine.

Saw another air attack on Colony at 11AM. Ideal day for air attacks. Fine, with high cloud.

Black out.

Henry Ching notes that his father's diary mentions the third American air raid on Hong Kong happened on this day, and that:

In Edwin Ride’s book on the BAAG he states “the first of regular 14th Air Force bombing raids over Hong Kong took place during 25-28 October 1943 (sic)”  - he says “there were all told three raids, 3.30 p.m. Oct 25th, 1.30 a.m. Oct 26th and 11 a.m. Oct 28th”.

R E Jones and Barbara Anslow also mention the raid, see this page.

OBJECTIVE: Dive-bomb shipping in Victoria Harbor

TIME OVER TARGET: ~11:00 a.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Seventeen P-40Es from 16^th and 75^th Fighter Squadrons (23^rd Fighter Group, China Air Task Force, 10^th Air Force)

AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW:

• P-40s (top cover): Major Bruce K. Holloway; Captain Edmund R. Goss; 1^st Lt. Jack R. Best; 1^st Lt. Dallas A. Clinger; 1^st Lt. Robert H. Mooney; Lt. H. K. Stuart; 2^nd Lt. Walter E. Lacy; 2^nd Lt. R.A. Mitchell; 1^st Lt. Robert A. O’Neill
• P-40s (bomb flight): Major John R. Alison; Captain John F. Hampshire; Captain Philip B. O’Connell; Major H.M. Pike; 1^st Lt. Chester D. Griffin; 1^st Lt. John D. Lombard

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 500-pound bombs (carried by six P-40s) and .50-caliber machine-gun rounds (strafing)

RESULTS: Possible damage to ships from near misses.  BAAG reports bombs exploding in the water left many dead fish floating in the harbor.

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Likely Ki-43s from the 33^rd Sentai, though American pilots report a wide variety of enemy aircraft, including Ki-27s, Ki-45s, A6Ms, and even (erroneously) German ME-109s.

AIRCRAFT LOSSES: One P-40 is shot down by Japanese fighters and its pilot, Capt. Philip B. O’Connell, is the first American airman to be killed on a mission over Hong Kong.  Four more P-40 pilots make forced landings when they run out of fuel while returning from Hong Kong.

SOURCES: Original mission reports and other documents in the Air Force Historical Research Agency archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama

Information compiled by Steven K. Bailey, author of Bold Venture: The American Bombing of Japanese-Occupied Hong Kong, 1942-1945 (Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press, 2019).