Marines May Have Costly Struggle

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 44, 21 February 1945, Page 5

Marines May Have Costly Struggle

New Technique For Destroying Jap Foxholes United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Tuesday, 8.55 p.m. WASHINGTON, February 19. Twentyfour hours after the initial landing- on Iwo Jima Island a terrific battle is going on. An eyewitness says the invasion was preceded by naval gunfire and a rocket and air bombardment unprecedented in the Pacific. The Marines charged across terrain suggestive of Gallipoli. The Marines are so strongly established that there is no hope of driving them from the island, but we will lose a fairly high percentage of men. The Marines battled ahead foot by foot against strongresistance through the flame-lit hellish night. Fighting uphill at heavy cost they secured the southern and main airfield before dusk. The remainder is nomansland in which the Japanese and Americans fought hand to hand in a wild melee. The Tokio radio says 20,000 Americans have already landed on Iwo Jima and the enemy is constantly landing reinforcements. The New York Times’ Guam correspondent says the main purpose of the Tokio attack was the protection of the Iwo landings. It succeeded as have few diversionary attacks in naval warfare. The Japanese were caught off balance and stayed that way. The Herald-Tribune’s commentator (Major Fielding Eliot) says: “Apparently the initial landings covered the whole shoreline of Iwo’s tail and they are already pushing uphill, but the capture of the tail will probably be the easiest task. Mount Suribachi at the tail’s tip to the left of the Marines’ landing area and the island’s main hill mass to the right will be the real difficulty. We have, however, acquired a new technique for destroying deep shelters and other Japanese fortifications.’’