OBJECTIVE: Bomb airfield at San Chau Island
TIME OVER TARGET: ~8:15 a.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Ten P-40E and P-40K from 75th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group) and six B-25s from 11th Bomb Squadron (341st Medium Bomb Group). All aircraft are from the China Air Task Force (10th Air Force).
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: P-40s: Major John R. Alison; Captain Albert J. Baumler; Captain John H. Hampshire; 1st Lt. H.M. Blackstone; 1st Lt. Edward H. Calvert; 1st Lt. Greg Carpenter; 1st Lt. William T. Gross; 1st Lt. Mack A. Mitchell; 2nd Lt. Bernard A. Dyrland. In addition, Col. Robert L. Scott and Lt. Col. Clinton D. Vincent aborted this mission due to mechanical issues with their P-40s.
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: Unknown
RESULTS: Bombs hit aircraft hangers and runway. One fighter aircraft is destroyed on the ground.
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Japanese fighters (possibly from the 25th Sentai or 33rd Sentai) take off during the raid but are unable to intercept American aircraft. One Ki-27 from an unknown unit is encountered by two P-40 pilots during their flight back to Kweilin. In the subsequent dogfight the American pilots claim to damage the Ki-27. However, it is possible the Americans actually shot the plane down, as Japanese records indicate one pilot from the 33rd Sentai was lost over Canton on this date. The 33rd Sentai flew Ki-43s rather than Ki-27s, however, so either the Americans misidentified a Ki-43 as a Ki-27 (unlikely, as the Ki-27 had a fixed undercarriage) or the 33rd still had some Ki-27s.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES: There are no American losses.
SOURCES:
- Original mission reports and other documents in the Air Force Historical Research Agency archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. I could not locate the relevant mission report for the B-25s in the archives, however.
- Japanese Army Fighter Aces, 1931-45, by Ikuhiko Hata, Yasuho Izawa, and Christopher Shores
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).