one Ki-43 and one Ki-84, and suffered damage on one Ki-84. On 12 September, two separate groups from the 5th Fighter Group of the CACW engaged in air battles over northeastern Hunan. First Lieutenant Phil Colman of the 26th Squadron claimed one damaged Ki-43, and his wingman Lieutenant Yang Shaohua claimed one Ki-43 shot down over Xiangtan; Colman further claimed one Ki-43, two damaged Ki-43s and a probable "Hamp" (A6M Type Zero) over Changsha. Another group of eight P-40s fought 12 Japanese fighters including six Ki-84s over Hengshan just south of Xiangtan; Captains Reynolds and Ramsey each claimed a damaged Japanese fighters, but Lieutenant Tom Brink was shot down while strafing, and one P-40 flown by Lieutenant Su Yinghai was badly damaged and written off after returning to base. On 26 October B-24s and B-25s of the 14th Air Force attacked shipping off the east Leizhou Peninsula situated opposite to Hainan in the South China Sea. Major Horace S. Carswell Jr. of the 308th Bomber Group was awarded the Medal of Honour for his action on that day when he attacked a Japanese convoy in the South China Sea under intense anti-aircraft fire. His B-24, No. 44-40825 (MARC 9612) was so badly damaged that when his plane reached over land, he ordered the crew to bail out. One crew member could not jump because his parachute had been ripped by flak, so Carswell remained with the aircraft to try to save the crew member by attempting to crash land. Before Carswell could attempt a crash landing, the bomber struck a mountainside and burned. By the end of 1944, the continued bombings and attacks on Japanese supply lines and storage facilities in Japanese-occupied China had caused a severe shortage of fuel greatly hampering the operations of Japanese air units. The American and Chinese air forces in China had inflicted heavy losses to the Japanese air forces operating in China, and forced the Japanese to adopt a defensive stance. 1945 On 28 January 1945, the Burma Road was fully restored as a land transport route for war material supplied to China by the Allies. It had been cut off when Japanese invaded Burma in 1942, leaving available only the air supply route over "The Hump", from Assam, India, over the eastern end of the Himalayas. The re-opening of the Burma Road greatly increased the supply of aircraft, spare parts, fuel and other