SATURDAY, 23 JANUARY 1943
ALASKA (Eleventh Air Force) Weather reconnaissance over Kiska and a search mission for the two B-24s missing since Monday reveal nothing.
Enemy aircraft appear over Amchitka twice but inflict no damage. Durint the
period of 18 to 23 Jan, a period of continuous storms and sudden changes to
extreme foul weather, non-combat losses are exceptionally high as 13 aircraft
are lost; no losses result from enemy action.
CENTRAL PACIFIC (Seventh Air Force) 24 P-40Ks of the 78th Fighter Squadron,
18th Fighter Group, escorted by three LB-30s, fly from Barking Sands to Midway. This flight of about 1,100 nautical miles is the longest
over-water massed flight of single-engine aircraft made as of this date. The
78th has been dispatched to Midway to replace the 73rd Fighter Squadron which
has been on the since June 17, 1942.
SOUTH PACIFIC (Thirteenth Air Force) US ground forces, aided by P-39s and USMC
fighter-bombers, have by this date pushed up the Guadalcanal coast and take
Kokumbona and Poha. The enemy has now lost control of a good
landing beach west of the airfields; captured with the beach are the artillery
pieces that have menaced Henderson Field and ground forces in the Mount
Austen area. The enemy's supply routes, communications systems and ammunition
dumps are also lost.
U.S. Army: On Guadalcanal, XIV Corps makes substantial progress, overrunning Kokumbona and pocketing enemy remaining east of the Poha in a ravine east of Hill 99, between CAM and 25th Division. Continuing west in the coastal sector, CAM Div reaches Hill 91 on S and to N takes Hill 92. In 25th Div zone, 27th Inf's 3d Bn drives north to the coast, taking Hills 98 and 99; 1st Bn seizes Kokumbona in a 2-pronged attack; 2d Bn on S flank, pushes NW to Hill 100. 2d Bn, 35th Inf, meets only slight resistance as it finishes clearing The Gifu ending all Japanese resistance atop Mount Austen.
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC (Fifth Air Force) B-17s attack
the airfields at Rabaul and shipping off Cape Gazelle. B-24s, operating individually, attack transports
north of Rabaul and inside Simpson
Harbor. B-25s pound supply dumps in the terrace area of Lae.
B-24s, operating individually, hit Madang and Finschhafen. HQ 317th Troop Carrier
Group and its subordinate 40th Troop Carrier Squadron, 41st Troop Carrier Squadron and 46th Troop Carrier Squadron with C-47s
arrive at Garbutt Field from the US. The 63d Bombardment
Squadron (Heavy), 43d Bombardment Group with B-17s transfers from Mareeba to 7 Mile Drome.
IJN: Lost is A6M2 Zero pilot Taka’aki ditched off Wei Island (Vial). Japanese submarine I-8 bombards Canton Island. Japanese planes bomb U.S. shipping in Milne Bay, New Guinea; fragments from near-misses damage freighter Stephen Johnson Field. One Armed Guard sailor and one merchant crewmen are injured.
USN: USS Guardfish (SS-217) sinks Japanese destroyer Hakaze south of Steffen Strait between New Ireland and New Hanover at Lat 2°47'S Long 156°38'E.
