The Japanese attack force was drawn from Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita's 25th Army. It sailed from Samah Harbour on Hainan Island on 4 December 1941. Additional ships carrying more troops joined the convoy from Saigon in southern Vietnam, French Indochina. An RAAF reconnaissance Lockheed Hudson discovered the Japanese convoy. Admiral Sir Thomas Phillips, the British naval commander, Far East ordered the battlecruiser to cancel its trip to Darwin, Australia, and return to Singapore as quickly as possible. The invasion force was spotted again on 7 December by a Catalina flying boat of No. 205 Squadron RAF, but the Catalina was shot down by five Nakajima Ki-27 fighters before it could radio its report to air headquarters in Singapore. Flying Officer Patrick Bedell, commanding the Catalina, and his seven crew members became the first Allied casualties in the war with Japan.