After 82-Day Battle

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 5

After 82-Day Battle

SPRINGBOARD FOR ATTACK ON JAPAN

N.Z.P.A. and 8.0.W.— 12.30 p.m.

LONDON, June 21. • Admiral Nimitz has announced the end of the Okinawa campaign in 82 days after the launching of the invasion. His communique states: "After 82 days of fighting the battle for Okinawa has been won. Organised resistance ceased to-day, and the enemy garrisons m two small pockets are being mopped up." The Japanese lost 90,000 men. The mopping up now in progress amounts to the extermination of a few isolated remnants, which are fighting to the death, says a Guam correspondent. Okinawa has an area of 485 square miles and is less than 400 miles from Tokyo and Osaka.

In the final stages of the battle infantry and marines burned the Japanese from their caves with flame-throwers, killing roughly 1000 of the enemy daily. In the last 15 miles of their withdrawal the enemy took advantage of every cave and ridge, and placed his guns with skill comparable with German delaying manoeuvres. The prisoners numbered 2565.

The Associated Press Guam correspondent says that the conquest of Okinawa was the longest and most costly of all campaigns in the Central and Western Pacific, and, with the casualty figures still incomplete, the Americans have lost approximately 10,000 killed and 27,000 wounded. America, however, has won a priceless springboard for the final attack on the enemy homeland.

General Mac Arthur has appointed General Stilwell commander of the American Tenth Army on Okinawa, succeeding Lieutenant-General Buckner. General Stilwell, Chief of the United States Ground Forces, who served in Burma and China, conferred with General Mac Arthur this week. He is still in the Pacific area, and is likely to take immediate command.

General Mac Arthur, as commander of the Army forces in the Pacific, has overall jurisdiction over the Tenth Army, though the Okinawa campaign is under Admiral Nimitz.