07 Jul 1943, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China

OBJECTIVE: Bomb shipping at Whampoa docks in Canton.  This is the first raid in a sustained anti-shipping campaign by the 14^th Air Force that begins in July 1943.

TIME OVER TARGET: ~1:15 p.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Seven B-25s from the 11^th Bomb Squadron (341^st Medium Bomb Group) and twenty-two P-40s from the 23^rd Fighter Group

AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: P-40s: Lt. Col. Clinton D. Vincent; Lt. Col. Samuel “Tex” Knowles

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: Forty-two 500-pound demolition bombs (B-25s)

RESULTS: Bombs dropped on three large vessels estimated at 6,000 to 10,000 tons each.  Results unknown, but postwar records show no Japanese ships are lost at Canton on this date.

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Ki-43-IIs from the 33^rd Sentai

AIRCRAFT LOSSES: American pilots claim to shoot down at least two Ki-43s.  Japanese records show fighter pilot Sgt. Tamotsu Watanabe of the 33^rd sentai is lost over Canton 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
• 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).