OBJECTIVE: Bomb river shipping (B-25s) and an aircraft assembly factory (P-40s) at Canton
TIME OVER TARGET: ~Noon
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Seventeen P-40s from the 16th 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: P-40s: Lt. Col. Clinton D. “Casey” Vincent; Major George W. Hazlett; Major Bruce K. Holloway; Captain Edmund R. Goss; 1st Lt. Donald D. Bryant; 1st Lt. W.S. Butler; 1st Lt. L.H. Couch; 1st Lt. Patrick H. Daniels; 1st Lt. Charles H. Dubois; 1st Lt. Martin W. Lubner; 1st Lt. Robert A. O’Neill; 1st Lt. Harold K. Stuart; 1st Lt. J.O. Wellborn; 2nd Lt. L.E. Hay; 2nd Lt. George V. Pyles
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: The B-25s carry a mix of 100-pound and 500-pound general purpose bombs as well as 17-kg fragmentation bombs. Four P-40s carry six 35-pound fragmentation bombs apiece for dive-bombing. The other thirteen P-40s function as escorts armed with guns only.
RESULTS: Hits and near misses are claimed on two river steamers east of Canton. One of these may have been the gunboat IJNS Suma (formerly HMS Moth), which a BAAG report claimed was strafed, killing the executive officer and injuring ten members of the crew. Some hits on the aircraft factory are also claimed.
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Several Ki-27s from an unknown unit are engaged, and P-40 pilots claim to shoot down at least one and possibly two.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES: Lt. Patrick H. Daniels is killed when his P-40 explodes in midair while dive-bombing. He is the first American airman to die in a mission over Canton. A second P-40 makes a forced landing in friendly territory.
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. Information on the IJNS Suma comes from the BAAG’s Waichow Intelligence Summary no. 15, December 30, 1942.
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).