After spending the summer of 1944 bombing Japanese facilities in Burma, personnel of the Chinese-American Composite Wing’s 3^rd Bomb Squadron finally began the transfer to China. Chinese and American ground crews crossed “the Hump” and moved on to Kweilin (Guilin) in late August.  No Japanese planes struck in the vicinity of Kweilin during the day but "they did keep us in the foxholes night after night," according to a service publication. Barracks boys shouted the warning jing bao! ("air raid") as they ran from room to room, turning off lights and banging on wash basins to wake anyone who may have slept through the warning siren. The threat soon became more dire. On September 8, as the squadron’s B-25s were completing the move, the Japanese 11^th Army overran Lingling, only 125 miles farther to the northeast. Then began their advance toward Kweilin.

Carrying frag clusters fused instantaneous, the 4^th Bomb Squadron’s Capt. Moncure N. (“Monte”) Lyon, in command of Task Force 34 that flew out of Chihkiang (Zhijiang), took off in the 3^rd Bomb Squadron’s A/C #722 at 1805 on November 22, 1944. With him were the 68^th Composite Wing’s Maj. A. T. House as observer and copilot and a crew that included the 3^rd Squadron’s Sgt. Eril W. Peters and Cpl. Andrew R. Allegretto as waist and tail gunners, as well as the 4^th Squadron’s Capt. Wei H. S. as navigator and SSgt. Oswald Weinert as top turret gunner. They had volunteered for this hazardous mission without knowing what it entailed until the briefing just before takeoff. It was a joint mission with the 68^th Composite Wing that included twenty-two B-24s of the 308^th Bomb Group (H) and two P-51s of the 75^th Fighter Squadron, 23^rd Fighter Group. The “heavies” approached the target and made their runs singly or in small groups, dropping their 500-pounders. Each time the searchlights were illuminated in an attempt to pick them up, Lyon attacked the lights again. This mission against Wuhan was the first of many completed successfully by Task Force 34, as well as by its two bomb squadrons later operating independently.