15 Oct 1944, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China
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OBJECTIVE: Destroy radar station near White Cloud airbase at Canton
RESULTS: Pilots bomb and strafe the radar installation, causing substantial damage. The pilots also strafe and set alight two fighter aircraft (or dummy aircraft) on the ground at White Cloud.
TIME OVER TARGET: ~6:30 a.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Two P-51s of the 76th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW: Major Slocumb (23rd FG) and Lt. Oran S. Watts (118th TRS)
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 4 x 500-pound bombs and 1,100 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: No Japanese planes are encountered in the air.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES: Two fighter aircraft (or aircraft dummies) burned on the ground (see above).
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).
