OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tien Ho airfield in Canton
TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:30 p.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Seventeen P-40E and P-40K from 16th, 75th, and 76th Fighter Squadrons (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: Col. Robert L. Scott; Lt. Col. Clinton D. “Casey” Vincent; Captain Edmund R. Goss; Captain C.B. Slocumb; 1st Lt. George R. Barnes; 1st Lt. Jack R. Best; 1st Lt. J.R. Carney; 1st Lt. Patrick H. Daniels; 1st Lt. Charles H. Dubois; 1st Lt. Martin W. Lubner; 1st Lt. Robert H. Mooney; 1st Lt. William W. Druwing; 1st Lt. Harold K. Stuart; 1st Lt. Heath H. Wayne; 1st Lt. J.O. Wellborn; 2nd Lt. W.S. Butler; 2nd Lt. Aaron Liepe
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: Unknown
RESULTS: Bombs hit hangers, aircraft, barracks, and oil/gasoline storage facilities.
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Two fighter pilots assigned to the 25th Sentai, 1st Lt. Hideo Sugawara and Warrant Officer Katsuji Katayama, are killed on the ground during the bombing. In addition, 1st Lt. Fujio Ichihashi Shigenobu from the 33rd Sentai is lost over Canton. (Japanese records do not indicate how this pilot was killed. See the November 23, 1942, raid on San Chau for a possible explanation of this loss.)
AIRCRAFT LOSSES: No American aircraft are lost. Bomber crews claim 7 to 10 aircraft are destroyed on the ground.
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).