OBJECTIVE: Reconnaissance flight over Canton and Hong Kong
TIME OVER TARGET: ~10:30 a.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Two P-40E1 from 16th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group, China Air Task Force, 10th Air Force)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: 1st Lt. John D. Lombard; 1st Lt. Robert H. Mooney
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: None
RESULTS: Pilots overfly White Cloud airfield in Canton, where they spot no aircraft. They also report no sign of the two river steamers reportedly sunk, damaged or beached during the raid on November 24. At Hong Kong the pilots count a light cruiser or destroyer, four medium-sized freighters, a tanker, and eight small merchant ships in Victoria Harbor.
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Pilots spot four fighter aircraft in the air below them at Hong Kong, but they apparently fail to spot the American aircraft overhead.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES: None
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).