AIR BLOW PLANNED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21816, 12 September 1945, Page 6

AIR BLOW PLANNED

U.S. INVASION FLEET

PLANES CONSERVED USE OF 9000 AIRCRAFT YOKOHAMA, Sept. 10. Japan was saving her last planes for a desperate all-out thrust against the American invasion fleet, according to General Shozo Kawabe, chief of the Japanese air force and one of the creators of the kamikaze corps. General Kawabe and other leading air force officers, m an interview with the Associated Press correspondent, said they expected the invasion late in October or early November and planned to hurl every available plane against the fleet. They calculated that by reserving planes and also by using army and navy trainers and obsolete craft they could send 9000 planes against the Ainericans at the rate of 5000 hourly. They expected to lose every pilot, but anticipated that one plane in four would hit a ship, thereby punishing the invaders so severely that the Japanese ground forces would have a chance to win. Japan was desperately short of aviation petrol, but had plenty of willing pilots, though many were inexperienced. They denied that captured airmen had been selected for especially rough treatment, and professed amazement when told that pictures of the execution of Allied airmen had been published in Japan. When the war ended Japan had 3000 combat planes and 2300 others. The American commanders said the Japanese had been dreaming wildly because the Kyushu airfields would have been bombed out before the invasion and the Japanese plane totals whittled down to insignificance.