23 Dec 1943, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China

OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tien Ho airfield at Canton

TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:08 p.m.

AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT:

• Twenty-nine B-24s from the 373^rd, 374^th, 375^th and 425^th Bomb Squadrons (308^th Heavy Bomb Group)
• Eleven P-40s from the 74^th Fighter Squadron (23^rd Fighter Group)
• Five P-51s and seven P-40s from the 76^th Fighter Squadron (23^rd Fighter Group)
• Unknown number of P-40Ns from the 32^nd Provisional Fighter Squadron (Chinese American Composite Wing)

AMERICAN and CHINESE PILOTS AND AIRCREW:

• B-24s: Lt. Haley; Lt. Gochnauer; Lt. Frazier; Lt. Maupin; Sgt. Smith; Sgt. Miller; Sgt. Orovecz; Sgt. Patty Gerrone; Tech Sgt. Robert Berman; Sgt. Roy D. Smith; Sgt. Cords; Sgt. Bodgemicz; Sgt. Yovick; Sgt. Randleman; Sgt. Kunkel; Tech Sgt. Lengyell; Sgt. Rasbang; Tech Sgt. Holbrook; Tech Sgt. Bates; Tech Sgt. Ferguson
• P-40s (74^th FS): Capt. Mimmack; 1^st Lt. Richard Mauritson; Lt. Hendricksen; 1^st Lt. Samuel P.M. Kinsey; Lt. Lee; 1^st Lt. Meyer; 1^st Lt. James E. Spurgin; Lt. Adams; Lt. Gordon F. Bennett; Lt. Heelen; Lt. Garrett; 2^nd Lt. Bear; 2^nd Lt. Cook; 2^nd Lt. Crawford; 2^nd Lt. Wallace Cousins
• P-40s: (76^th FS): Lt. Olney; Lt. Templeton; Lt. Richard Perkins; Lt. Watt; 1^st Lt. Vern Kramer; Flight Officer Wilson; Lt. Wilson (16^th FS); Lt. McDonald (26^th FS)
• P-51s (76^th FS): Captain Stewart; Lt. Gibson; Lt. Celani; Lt. Schaeffer; Lt. Lunsford; Lt. Trecartin; Lt. Saunders
• P-40s (32^nd PFS): Captain Jim Dale; Captain Hung; Captain Tim Maloney; Captain William L. Turner; Lt. Chen; Lt. S.Y. Hwang; Lt. Lindell; Lt. K.C. Wang

ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 240 x 100-pound bombs; 99 x 250-pound bombs; 139 x 100-pound fragmentation bomb clusters

RESULTS: All B-24s bomb White Cloud airfield by mistake.  Bombs crater runway, hit revetments, and possibly destroy two aircraft on the ground.

JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: An estimated fifteen fighter aircraft intercept the B-24s.  These include Ki-43s, possibly from the 11^th and/or 25^th Sentai, and Ki-44s from the 85^th Sentai.

AIRCRAFT LOSSES:

• Enemy fighters inflict minor damage on four B-24s and serious damage on one B-24, though all five aircraft return safely to Kweilin.  Three lieutenants (Gochnauer; Frazier; Maupin) bail out of the badly damaged B-24 over friendly territory and eventually rejoin their unit.
• Two P-40s from the 32^nd Provisional Fighter Squadron are shot down, killing Lt. Hwang and Lt. Wang.
• Three P-40s from the 74^th and 76^th Fighter Squadrons crash land, though the pilots are uninjured.
• American pilots and B-24 gunners claim to shoot down at least eleven enemy fighters, but Japanese records indicate that only Sgt. Major Hidesue Ikubo of the 85^th Sentai is lost 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.

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).