Unconditional surrender of Italy made known
Plays (see 9th for details)
Diary pages from this date
Well, I am glad to say that the camp rations have come in every day since the last raid in spite of the gasoline shortage – so perhaps I got all hot under the collar about it for nothing. However, the Japanese did issue the warning. There was a story that Hatori came out to see Gimson the next day and assured him that even if it meant that food had to be brought out here (8 miles) by coolie labour he would see that it arrived. He certainly seems to do his best by this camp.
11.30 am. News! Great News! ‘The HK News’ contained as its principal front page item the marvellous news that:
“The Badoglio Government of Italy has surrendered unconditionally to Britain and the United States and that a Fascist National Government has been formed in the North of Italy by Mussolini who is now raising an army that will continue, with the German army to resist the anti-axis invasion.”
The British forces that invaded the Italian mainland on the 3rd have evidently made rapid progress and the German forces left in the South of Italy will be left in a similar position to that of our BEF when the Belgian and French armies collapsed.
OBJECTIVE: Bomb Whampoa docks in Canton
TIME OVER TARGET: ~4:00 p.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Six P-38s from the 449th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: Captain L.O. Gregg; 2nd Lt. Weber
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: Unknown, but since only four of the six P-38s carry bombs, probably 8 x 500-pound general-purpose bombs
RESULTS: P-38 pilots claim three hits on Whampoa docks
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Up to seventeen Ki-44-II led by Captain Yukiyoshi Wakamatsu.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES:
- American pilots claim to shoot down one Ki-44 and damage another, but Japanese records indicate no pilots are lost over Canton on this date.
- Captain Wakamatsu and his pilots score multiple hits on two P-38s, though both return to base safely.
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).