OBJECTIVE: Fighter sweep over Canton airfields
RESULTS: Pilots spot Japanese bombers over White Cloud airbase, but are unable to close within firing range
TIME OVER TARGET: ~8:30 a.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Six P-51s from 76th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: 1st Lt. Elmore P. Bullock; Flight Officer P.J. Smith (76th FS); Lt. Coakley; Lt. Phillips; Lt. Barr (26th FS); Lt. Kutsher (118th TRS). Pilots are from three different squadrons, but it is not clear if the aircraft are.
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: None
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: An estimated thirty bombers from an unknown unit
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).