23 Nov 1942, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China

OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tien Ho airfield in Canton

TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:30 p.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Seventeen P-40E and P-40K from 16^th, 75^th, and 76^th Fighter Squadrons (23^rd Fighter Group) and six B-25s from 11^th Bomb Squadron (341^st Medium Bomb Group).  All aircraft are from the China Air Task Force (10th Air Force).

AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: Col. Robert L. Scott; Lt. Col. Clinton D. “Casey” Vincent; Captain Edmund R. Goss; Captain C.B. Slocumb; 1^st Lt. George R. Barnes; 1^st Lt. Jack R. Best; 1^st Lt. J.R. Carney; 1^st Lt. Patrick H. Daniels; 1^st Lt. Charles H. Dubois; 1^st Lt. Martin W. Lubner; 1^st Lt. Robert H. Mooney; 1^st Lt. William W. Druwing; 1^st Lt. Harold K. Stuart; 1^st Lt. Heath H. Wayne; 1^st Lt. J.O. Wellborn; 2^nd Lt. W.S. Butler; 2^nd Lt. Aaron Liepe

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: Unknown

RESULTS: Bombs hit hangers, aircraft, barracks, and oil/gasoline storage facilities. 

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Two fighter pilots assigned to the 25^th Sentai, 1^st Lt. Hideo Sugawara and Warrant Officer Katsuji Katayama, are killed on the ground during the bombing.  In addition, 1^st Lt. Fujio Ichihashi Shigenobu from the 33^rd Sentai is lost over Canton.  (Japanese records do not indicate how this pilot was killed.  See the November 23, 1942, raid on San Chau for a possible explanation of this loss.)

AIRCRAFT LOSSES: No American aircraft are lost.  Bomber crews claim 7 to 10 aircraft are destroyed on the ground.

SOURCES:

• Original mission reports and other documents in the Air Force Historical Research Agency archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.  I could not locate the relevant mission report for the B-25s in the archives, however.

• Japanese Army Fighter Aces, 1931-45, by Ikuhiko Hata, Yasuho Izawa, and Christopher Shores

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).