Another clip from the NHK collection featuring a downed Vought F4U Corsair is Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). The date mentioned is January 12, 1945.
From "Air War Pacific Chronology" by Eric Hammel.
January 12, 1945
FRENCH INDOCHINA: Night-flying scout bombers and fighters launched at 0330 hours from Task Group 38.5, fail to locate IJN battleship-carriers thought to be in Camranh Bay (they are not); 850 Task Force 38 aircraft mount a one-day total of 984 attack sorties against Japanese airfields and shipping along the west coast of French Indochina from Tourane to Saigon.
An afternoon strike against shipping around Saigon by more than 500 carrier bombers and fighters is instigated by a report in the morning from French Underground operatives in the city itself. In all during the day, claims are made for the destruction of 44 enemy vessels (including a French Navy cruiser) aggregating nearly 33,000 tons. It is also estimated that 20 Japanese seaplanes are destroyed on the water at Camranh Bay and 77 land-based aircraft are destroyed on the ground, including 50 that arrive from Singapore after dark.
Twenty-three USN and USMC carrier aircraft are lost, 16 to antiaircraft fire and seven in operational accidents. Also, a Fourteenth Air Force B-24 is shot down by USMC F4U pilots after its crew fails to respond to recognition calls and procedures and first opens fire on the unfamiliar F4Us. Most of the downed airmen are rescued.
VF-3 F6F pilots down a Ki-49, two D3As, an A6M, and three Ki-61s over Saigon between 0810 and 0840 hours; a VF-4 F6F pilot down an E13A over Quinon at 0855 hours; and a VF-3 F6F pilot downs a G3M near Padaran Bay at 1020 hours.
Lt(jg) Horace B. Moranville, a VF-11 F6F ace, is taken prisoner by Vichy French forces after his airplane is downed near Saigon by antiaircraft fire. He will escape captivity in early March, walk 300 miles to join friendly forces at Dienbienphu, and return to U.S. hands on March 28. Several other carrier pilots and crewmen experience similar escapes and rescues, but at least one USN pilot is later captured and executed.
Task Group 38.5 is formally dissolved. And at 1931 hours, Task Force 38 departs from the coastal area at high speed in the hope of avoiding an approaching typhoon.
Quite interesting to see the variety of Japanese aircraft types claimed by the US pilots: a Ki-49, two D3As, an A6M, three Ki-61s, an E13A, and a G3M.
Mark Herber commented:
That's an Essex-based Marine Corsair flown by 2nd Lieutenant Joseph O. Lynch's VMF-213 F4U-1D BuNo 57381.
On 12 January 1945, he was on a special fighter sweep over then-French Indo-China. From the VMF-124/213 action report via fold3.com:
"Lynch was hit by small AA fire in the engine and made a forced landing in a rice paddy some 3 miles west of Tan Son Nhut, after being heard to say he was going in. Lynch was observed standing by his plane before our VF departed, and was reported 14 January to be safely in hands of French (friendly) and on his way to China."
To "finish" the story, the following is from Robert Sherrod's "History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II" p. 338:
"Lynch climbed out of his cockpit and the last his pals saw of him he waved his hand in salute, 'a lone, straight figure in an alien land.'
"But even in this alien land Lynch found friends. He was picked up by a native policeman who smuggled him to a French colonial outpost. At French Army headquarters in Saigon he me three Navy pilots from other carriers who also had been shot down during the day. All were fed and clothed, then stowed away in a women's prison, where they stayed six weeks, unbeknownst to the Japanese. On one occasion an SB2C pilot whose French was fluent saved the Americans by convincing the Japanese 'nobody here but us Frenchmen.'
"The pilots were transferred north to Hanoi for internment. Early in March the Japanese declared war on the French and twice the Foreign Legionnaires who were in charge of the Americans (by now a party of five Navy pilots, an Army B-24 pilot, and Lynch) engaged in sharp clashes, during which half the Legionnaires were killed. Through the efforts of an adjutant-chef named Gunther (a German) the Americans escaped from the fighting. At the village of Din Ben there was a U.S. Army Intelligence lieutenant named Carpenter waiting to meet them. On 31 March a C-47 from Kunming landed on the airstrip and took the grateful pilots to China."
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