TOKIO'S ADMISSION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 119, 20 April 1942, Page 5

TOKIO'S ADMISSION

MANY BOMBS DROPPED

"POPULACE INDIGNANT."

NEW YORK, April 18. The Tokio radio admitted that the attackers, striking from several directions against industrial areas about Tokio, uropped many bombs. It added: '•Though the casualties in schools and hospitals are as yet unknown, this inhuman attack on these cultural establishments and residential districts is causing widespread indignation among the populace." It said that the Mikado's palace is undamaged and the Imperial lamily is safe. It also said that immediately alter the alert Japanese fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries went into action.

The listening station at San Francisco of the Columbia Broadcasting Service said that the first Tokio announcement of the bombing of the capital wa.s contained in an Englishlanguage broadcast. This was repeated shortly afterward by a Japanese broadcast which injected the new angle that the enemy's planes did not attempt to hit military establishments. The broadcast said that the planes were repulsed by a heavy barrage from the defence guns, while the previous training of the people of Tokio for air-raid defence was immediately .put into practice a.nd as a result the losses were exceedingly light. The Tokio communique stated that planes approached from several directions and reached Tokio and Yokohama at 1.30 p.m. Two enemy planes raided Nagoya (170 miles from Tokio) at 3.30 p.m., while a single plane dropped, incendiaries at Kobe but did no serious damage. The Central Defence. Headquarters later admitted that fires were caused by incendiary bombs at Nagoya and Kobe, but claimed that these were brought under control in four hours. It added that incendiaries fell in six planes in Nagoya and three places m Kobe.

It claimed that so far nine enemy planes were reported shot .down, and said that six American aviators attached to the aircraft-carrier \ orktown wvrv captured after being forced down in Japan. These men were named. The mother of one of the men named said in Washington, where she resides, that she was officially notified that her son had been captured during the raid on the Marshall Islands in February. It is worthy of note that soon before the announcement of the raid ou Tokio the Japanese broadcast the news that fire destroyed 4110 houses in the village of Oguni, in Northern Japan, with many casualties. The Japanese Government broadcast a warning to the people to prepare for further attacks bv the United Nations planes', adding: "The Empire has been brought into the war zone." _ The newspaper Yomum Snimbun warns that Japan must be prepared for more raids as long as the United States possesses aircraft-carriers. It adds: "Now that the United States has attacked Japanese territory for the first time, the Japanese nation must resolve anew to smash completely Britain and the United States.