09 Sep 1943, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China

OBJECTIVE: Bomb riverfront godowns at Canton

TIME OVER TARGET: ~3:00 p.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Four P-38s from the 449^th Fighter Squadron (23^rd Fighter Group)

AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: 1^st Lt. Lewden Enslen; 2^nd Lt. Billie M. Beardsley

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 8 x 500-pound bombs

RESULTS: Pilots report direct hits on godowns

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS:

• Ki-43-II and Ki-44-II from the 25^th Sentai and 85^th Sentai.  Pilots may have included Major Toshio A. Sakagawa.
• One Ki-57 transport plane.

AIRCRAFT LOSSES: P-38s shoot down the Ki-57 transport plane, killing Lt. General Nakasono Moritaka and members of his staff.

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).