OBJECTIVE: Sea sweep over South China Sea
TIME OVER TARGET: Twelve noon
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Two B-25s from the 11th Bomb Squadron (341st Medium Bomb Group)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW:
- B-25 #38: 1st Lt. Edgar N. Gentry; 1st Lt. William M. Henry; 2nd Lt. Ralph Kamhi; Sgt. Robert L. Lantz
- B-25 #88: 1st Lt. Dow J. Richter; 2nd Lt. Thomas H. Anderson; 2nd Lt. Charles A. Lutton; Staff Sgt. Frederick T. Kavaney
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 8 x 500-pound bombs
RESULTS: The B-25s bomb and strafe a 200-foot armed freighter at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta. The ship is mostly likely the auxiliary minesweeper Genchi Maru (525 GRT). The vessel is on fire and sinking when the B-25s depart the scene. Crewmen who abandon ship are strafed by gunners aboard the B-25s.
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: None
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.
- The Imperial Japanese Navy in World War Two: A Graphic Presentation of the Japanese Naval Organization and List of Combatant and Non-Combatant Vessels Lost or Damaged in the War from the Military History Section of the General Headquarters of the U.S. Far East Command in 1952.
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).