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

OBJECTIVE: Reconnaissance flight over Canton and Hong Kong

TIME OVER TARGET: ~10:30 a.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Two P-40E1 from 16^th Fighter Squadron (23^rd Fighter Group, China Air Task Force, 10^th Air Force)

AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: 1^st Lt. John D. Lombard; 1^st Lt. Robert H. Mooney

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: None

RESULTS: Pilots overfly White Cloud airfield in Canton, where they spot no aircraft.  They also report no sign of the two river steamers reportedly sunk, damaged or beached during the raid on November 24.  At Hong Kong the pilots count a light cruiser or destroyer, four medium-sized freighters, a tanker, and eight small merchant ships in Victoria Harbor.

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Pilots spot four fighter aircraft in the air below them at Hong Kong, but they apparently fail to spot the American aircraft overhead.

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).