Diary pages from this date

My 25th birthday.

Raid at 3.50 p.m.

OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tai Koo dockyard and HK & Whampoa dockyard

TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:00 p.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT:

• Six B-25s from the 11^th Bomb Squadron (341^st Medium Bomb Group)
• Six B-25s from the 2^nd Bomb Squadron (1^st Bomb Group, Chinese American Composite Wing)
• Eight P-40s from the 74^th Fighter Squadron (23^rd Fighter Group)
• Six P-51As from the 76^th Fighter Squadron (23^rd Fighter Group)
• Seventeen P-40Ns from the 3^rd Fighter Group (Chinese American Composite Wing)

AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW:

• P-40s (74^th FS): Col. Rouse; Lt. Colonel Norval C. Bonawitz; Major Denney; Captain Bell; Lt. Lundy; Lt. Hendrickson; Lt. Morello; Lt. Morin
• P-51s (76^th FS): Lt. Col. David L. “Tex” Hill; Captain James M. “Willie” Williams; 1^st Lt. Dale Bell; 1^st Lt. Robert T. Colbert; 1^st Lt. Harry G. Zavakos; Flight Officer Wilson
• B-25s (2^nd BS): Lt. Colonel Branch; Captain Conrad; Captain Harper; Captain Carson; Captain Churchill; 1^st Lt. Seacrest; Sgt. C.C. Wei
• B-25s (11^th BS):
  • B-25 #38: Flight Officer Richard M. Gramling; Flight Officer William R. Monroe; Sgt. Rafael C. Arellano; Corporal Everett F. Hamilton
  • B-25 #46: 2^nd Lt. John M. Overstreet; 2^nd Lt. Stanley A. Johnson; 2^nd Lt. Ralph Kamhi; Sgt. Frederick C. DeWitt; Private Charles J. Wilder
  • B-25 #57: 1^st Lt. Edgar N. Gentry; 2^nd Lt. Harold E. Sparhawk; 1^st Lt. Paul J. Diekman; Sgt. William H. Johnson; Staff Sgt. Robert D. Shaak; Corporal E.Z. Mann
  • B-25 #68: 1^st Lt. William A. Brenner; 2^nd Lt. Delwyn F. Ritzdorf; 1^st Lt. Frank H. Gibson; Staff Sgt. Ray T. Hamilton; Sgt. Alvin A. Stainker
  • B-25 #88: 1^st Lt. George T. Grottle; 2^nd Lt. Harold Rochelle; 2^nd Lt. Robert B. Fischborn; Staff Sgt. Golden U. Gallup
  • B-25 #92: Lt. Col. Joseph B. Wells; 1^st Lt. William M. Henry; 1^st Lt. Charles J. Bethea; 2^nd Lt. Herbert I. Robinson; Sgt. Joe D. Josserand; Sgt. Harold J. Coleman; Corporal Arbun K. Griffen

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 72 x 500-pound bombs

RESULTS: Bombs hit the Tai Koo and HK & Whampoa dockyards.  At Tai Koo, the 2,645-ton Teiren Maru is damaged beyond repair.

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Ki-43 and Ki-44 pilots from the 85^th Sentai

AIRCRAFT LOSSES:

• Pilots of the 85^th Sentai shoot down two P-51As (pilots Colbert and Williams) and damage a third (pilot Hill)
• One B-25 gunner claims to shoot down one enemy fighter and Lt. Col. Hill damages one Ki-44

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).

Just before 10 a.m. the Gripsholm is guided by tugs to pier F in Jersey City. At 12 noon the passengers start to come down the gangplank, but before they can leave they’re interviewed by military and FBI agents looking for spies and collaborators. The interviews take so long that two hundred passengers, including Emily Hahn and her daughter Carola, have to spend another night on the ship. Thirty repatriates are taken to Ellis Island for further questioning.

Hahn herself is one of those under suspicion: her interrogators want to know why she wasn’t interned like the other Americans, why she received favours from the Japanese and why she fraternised with high-ranking enemy officials.

The Canadians are kept on the ship waiting for the Canadian authorities, who are finding American security and intelligence hard to deal with. And there are a number of Canadians suspected of collaboration. It takes twenty hours to get everyone off the Gripsholm and on to a sealed train controlled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Father Charles Murphy is met by a reporter who hands him some cuttings from Canadian newpapers - he modestly disclaims the title 'the hero of Hong Kong' some of them have awarded him. He gives a long interview on his work running a refugee camp for 2,000 Chinese displaced by the fighting. The camp was set up by the Government Medical Department in the grounds of the Maryknoll Mission on December 10 (1941) and all of the occupants quietly slipped away on December 24, as if forewarned.

Sources:

Hahn: Ken Cuthberston, Nobody Said Not To Go, 1998, 278-279

Canadians: Daniel S. Levy, Two-Gun Cohen: An Autobiography, 1997, Kindle Edition, Location, 5583

Murphy: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19431202&id=RS8rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zpgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5523,235264

Note:

See also December 2, 1943

Big air raid while I with Kotewall in China Building Full of glass. Felt very nervous. Big explosions. Home to find family very scared. Paper says ten planes. Alleged twenty P40s protecting bombers and seven shot down. Mrs Amy Madar killed, George Manley's sister from Shanghai. Connie Lum's sister nurse in Matilda also killed. Taikoo 200 casualties. Kowloon a mess. Hillwood, Kimberley, Cameron, Granville, Canton Roads. Two dud 200 lb bombs in Hillwood Road in Kowloon. Dud 500 lb bomb in Chungking Arcade.

Wrote music all day.

Raid at 3.50 pm Kai Tak direction. No opposition. Fine. Another raid 5pm.

With Steve pm.

(Guff as heard. HK to be retaken by 8th inst. Women & kids to leave 20th inst. & general repatriation next Jan.)

Here's how the raid is reported in the following day's Hong Kong News: