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IJN escort sunk by Hellcats 9 September 1944
Initially I believed that a report in a newspaper (identified by one of our excellent members of the forum) that four aircraft of VF-15 (Duncan, Twelves, Henning and Self) had sunk an armed escort in addition to a Sugar Charlie AK and a (Toku Daihatsu?) landing barge in the Sulu Sea was a conflation of Duncan's earlier sinking of an escort vessel in June 1944 but the ACA definitely credits these pilots with sinking an armed escort vessel (type not specified).
I have not been able to locate a Japanese warship sunk on this date that would fit. However it occurred to me that an "armed escort" could be a flak ship, or barge, a gunboat or any vessel carrying a battery of AA weapons. Can anyone contribute to the identification of this vessel?
best regards
Keith
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