First Lieutenant Hampden Wallace Harding, bomber pilot and holder of the Air Medal for more than 300 combat missions, was killed March 13 in fighting over Hainan Strait, China. His plane was witnessed to have been struck by tracers in the cockpit and navigation area by Japanese Zero fighters during a window of time when the bombing mission was without American fighter escort. The plane plunged violently into the ocean with no possibility of survivors.
(Image above, and some text, courtesy of Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center.)