CACW Enters Combat

The Chinese-American Composite Wing officially entered combat on Thursday, November 4, 1943, when three 2^nd Bomb Squadron B-25s flew on a mission out of Erh Tong airfield at Kweilin (now Guilin) down to the coast. In a joint raid with Mitchells of the 11^th (“Sky Dragons”) Bomb Squadron, 341^st Bomb Group, 69^th Composite Wing, 14^th Air Force, this was a sea sweep to hit Japanese shipping at Swatow Harbor. One of the Mitchells successfully bombed and strafed an enemy cargo vessel and sank it, the second crash-landed but all aircrew members survived, and the third went down and all aboard were lost.