OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tien Ho airfield at Canton
TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:08 p.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT:
- Twenty-nine B-24s from the 373rd, 374th, 375th and 425th Bomb Squadrons (308th Heavy Bomb Group)
- Eleven P-40s from the 74th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
- Five P-51s and seven P-40s from the 76th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
- Unknown number of P-40Ns from the 32nd Provisional Fighter Squadron (Chinese American Composite Wing)
AMERICAN and CHINESE PILOTS AND AIRCREW:
- B-24s: Lt. Haley; Lt. Gochnauer; Lt. Frazier; Lt. Maupin; Sgt. Smith; Sgt. Miller; Sgt. Orovecz; Sgt. Patty Gerrone; Tech Sgt. Robert Berman; Sgt. Roy D. Smith; Sgt. Cords; Sgt. Bodgemicz; Sgt. Yovick; Sgt. Randleman; Sgt. Kunkel; Tech Sgt. Lengyell; Sgt. Rasbang; Tech Sgt. Holbrook; Tech Sgt. Bates; Tech Sgt. Ferguson
- P-40s (74th FS): Capt. Mimmack; 1st Lt. Richard Mauritson; Lt. Hendricksen; 1st Lt. Samuel P.M. Kinsey; Lt. Lee; 1st Lt. Meyer; 1st Lt. James E. Spurgin; Lt. Adams; Lt. Gordon F. Bennett; Lt. Heelen; Lt. Garrett; 2nd Lt. Bear; 2nd Lt. Cook; 2nd Lt. Crawford; 2nd Lt. Wallace Cousins
- P-40s: (76th FS): Lt. Olney; Lt. Templeton; Lt. Richard Perkins; Lt. Watt; 1st Lt. Vern Kramer; Flight Officer Wilson; Lt. Wilson (16th FS); Lt. McDonald (26th FS)
- P-51s (76th FS): Captain Stewart; Lt. Gibson; Lt. Celani; Lt. Schaeffer; Lt. Lunsford; Lt. Trecartin; Lt. Saunders
- P-40s (32nd PFS): Captain Jim Dale; Captain Hung; Captain Tim Maloney; Captain William L. Turner; Lt. Chen; Lt. S.Y. Hwang; Lt. Lindell; Lt. K.C. Wang
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 240 x 100-pound bombs; 99 x 250-pound bombs; 139 x 100-pound fragmentation bomb clusters
RESULTS: All B-24s bomb White Cloud airfield by mistake. Bombs crater runway, hit revetments, and possibly destroy two aircraft on the ground.
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: An estimated fifteen fighter aircraft intercept the B-24s. These include Ki-43s, possibly from the 11th and/or 25th Sentai, and Ki-44s from the 85th Sentai.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES:
- Enemy fighters inflict minor damage on four B-24s and serious damage on one B-24, though all five aircraft return safely to Kweilin. Three lieutenants (Gochnauer; Frazier; Maupin) bail out of the badly damaged B-24 over friendly territory and eventually rejoin their unit.
- Two P-40s from the 32nd Provisional Fighter Squadron are shot down, killing Lt. Hwang and Lt. Wang.
- Three P-40s from the 74th and 76th Fighter Squadrons crash land, though the pilots are uninjured.
- American pilots and B-24 gunners claim to shoot down at least eleven enemy fighters, but Japanese records indicate that only Sgt. Major Hidesue Ikubo of the 85th Sentai is lost on this date.
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).