OBJECTIVE: Fly a series of staggered single-aircraft night raids to harass airbases at Canton and prevent JAAF pilots from flying night bombing missions against American airbases in China.
RESULTS: Nine B-25 crews are briefed to bomb the Canton airbases. The first aircraft to take off later returns to base with its bombs still aboard when the mission is cancelled due to poor weather. When the weather report is determined to be inaccurate, the remaining eight planes continue with the mission. The results are variable:
- One aircraft fails to find the target and jettisons its bombs.
- Two aircraft fail to find the target and return their bombs to base.
- Two aircraft bomb Tien Ho airbase.
- One aircraft bombs White Cloud airbase.
- One aircraft bombs an unidentified landing strip in the Canton area.
- One aircraft bombs Pingnam, the designated alternate target.
TIME OVER TARGET: ~10:32 p.m. on October 02 to 12:27 a.m. on October 03.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Nine B-25s from the 11th Bomb Squadron (341st Medium Bomb Group)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: Capt. Danforth Loring; 1st Lt. Gordon R. Francis; Lt. Nichols; Lt. Merril S. Parham; 2nd Lt. Leander L. Smith; 2nd Lt. John C. Steadman; 2nd Lt. Arthur E. Thomas; 1st Lt. Henry D. Wagner; 2nd Lt. Lawrence F. Uebel; 2nd Lt. Wilfred E. Cather
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 48 x 100-pound fragmentation bomb clusters; 20 x 100-pound bombs
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.
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).