600 Superfortresses Employed

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24624, 21 July 1945, Page 7

600 Superfortresses Employed

HUGE FIRES STARTED IN HONSHU (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) GUAM, July 19. Huge fires were left blazing by more than 600 Superfortresses wincli raided towns in the Japanese home island of Honshu to-day. The force was the largest ever sent out bv the Allies against Japan, and it carried about 4000 tons of bombs. The towns attacked were Choshi, Fukui, and Okazaki. Choshi is the most important fishing harbour and source of protein foods lor Tokyo and Yokohama; Fukui is one of the most important industrial cities on the west of Honshu, with many electrical and machine tool plants; Okazaki, an old and liighly inflammable city near Nagoya, contains many shadow factories for the manufacture of aircraft parts. Targets in the province of Hitachi were also attacked. Superfortresses have now attacked a total of 46 cities on the Japanese mainland. Their latest raids were made largely with incendiaries, backed with big quantities of high explosives. According to the Tokyo radio, the British and American carrier task force is still oil the coast of Honshu. Attacks were made to-day on the Tokyo area. A correspondent on board one of the British warships said that to-day the Allied force approached closer than ever before to the Japanese coast. At t point 55 miles south of Tokyo, they bombarded the naval base of Yokosuka, at the entrance to Tokyo Bay. With cover afforded by a storm, the Allied vessels approached within three or four miles of the shore.