Digging Up the Past
On January 16, 1945, just three months after the success of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, three US Navy airmen were sent to aircraft carrier the USS Hancock to participate in Operation Gratitude. The mission: to bomb the South China coast and destroy Japan’s sea lanes in the region.
While the exercise was a strategic success, it came with substantial human loss. “The pilots were just getting shot at from the minute they pulled out from the carriers,” says Craig Mitchell, a local amateur historian. “If you read the survivors’ accounts, even the most experienced pilots from the navy said that Hong Kong was the
