U.S. RAIDS ON JAPAN

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1945, Page 5

U.S. RAIDS ON JAPAN

BEING KEPT UP Main Naval Base a Target WASHINGTON. March 19. Admiral Nimitz stated U.S. carrier 'planes attacked Kobe, Kure and other objectives in and around the Inland Sea on Monday. (Rec. 11.10.) WASHINGTON, Mar. 20. Kure, which has been bombed, is Japan’s greatest naval base. It presents a military target of unequalled importance. It is one of the strongest fortified areas on the whole Japanese mainland. NEW YORK, March 19. Tokio radio stated: Wave after wave of United States naval planes attacked the Osaka-Kobe area for at least nine hours on Monday. An incendiary attack against Nagoya was made by Superfortresses says a U.S. Air Force communique. Returning airmen reported huge fires in the industrial heart of the city with dense smoke rising six thousand feet. The results were good to excellent. Fighter opposition was meagre. Flak was more intense than in the previous attack on March 12. No Superfortresses were lost. More than 300 Superfortresses rained upwards of 200 tons of incendiaries in Sunday’s raid on Nagoya. Major-General C. E. le May said he hoped the concentrated low-level attack would help complete the ruin of the city’s industrial section begun, with not too much success on March 12. The ‘bombs away’ signal was given just as dawn was about to break over Nagoya. The Superfortresses swooped down, to within 6000 feet and unloosed their bombs on practically the same area as in the previous raid. One pilot who went bn the previous raid said: “We burned Nagoya for sure this time. ‘We burned hell out of it,’ reported another pilot who was over the target for 30 minutes.’’ “Reconnaissance photographs of Saturday’s Kobe raid showed a smoke pall covering the city, which is believed to have been hard hit,” says the Associated Press. “The Kawasaki locomotive plant and a power plant were devastated.” The Tokio radio says the incendiaries were dropped chiefly in the business section. Fires at various points burned for three and a-half hours.

The radio also reported that several medium-sizned enemy planes bombed Hachijo Island, two hundred miles south of Tokio yesterday. Tokio radio stated: A fleet of Allied submarines v aiming to cut Japan’s southern supply lines has entered the China Sea. It added: Japanese planes are attacking it. A United States Navy communique states 15 more Japanese ships, including three destroyers, and two escort vessels, have been sunk by American submarines. HUGE U.S. NAVAL FORCE BEING ATTACKED ON JAPAN (Rec. 12.30)i NEW YORK, March 20 Tokio radio says: Japanese aircraft continue their attack on the American task force which is comprised of five groups of warships. They include fifteen aircraft carriers. When first sighted on Monday the task force was three hundred miles south of Shikoku Island. Tokio radio claims that Japanese pilots in Monday sank two warships and shot down one hundred and seven of the task force planes.