OBJECTIVE: Dive-bomb shipping in Victoria Harbor
TIME OVER TARGET: ~11:00 a.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Seventeen P-40Es from 16th and 75th Fighter Squadrons (23rd Fighter Group, China Air Task Force, 10th Air Force)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW:
- P-40s (top cover): Major Bruce K. Holloway; Captain Edmund R. Goss; 1st Lt. Jack R. Best; 1st Lt. Dallas A. Clinger; 1st Lt. Robert H. Mooney; Lt. H. K. Stuart; 2nd Lt. Walter E. Lacy; 2nd Lt. R.A. Mitchell; 1st 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; 1st Lt. Chester D. Griffin; 1st 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 33rd 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).