history · 26 October 1943 · 82 years ago
USAAF 14th Air Force deployed naval mines at the entrance of Haiphong harbor in northern French Indochina. US Navy Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) intelligence officers Raymond Kotrla, Ralph DuBois, and Duncan McCann were aboard to provide naval expertise. As they departed, the lead ship of a Japanese convoy struck a mine, blocking the harbor entrance for the rest of the war. The remainder of the convoy fled toward Hainan island, China to the east, but they would be discovered by a second wave of B-24 bombers, which sank six of the ships.