More Heavy Air Strikes on Homeland

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 189, 11 August 1945, Page 5

More Heavy Air Strikes on Homeland

RUSSIAN ADVANCES IN KOREA Received Friday, 9.50 p.m. NEW YORK, August 10. Received Friday, 11.20 p.m. NEW YORK, August 10. The Associated Press’ correspondent aboard an American carrier off Japan today said the carrier planes heavily attacked Northern Honshu hitting a strategic airfield which the Japanese were apparently using to stage aircraft to Manchuria for defence against the Russians. It is also believed that many of the planes destroyed on the ground were part of the enemy’s stockpile of aircraft carefully saved for the Allied invasion. The Associated Press’s correspondent at Manila says the heaviest concentration of Far East Air Force planes attacking Kyushu struck the Tsuiki aerodrome, a major navy and air training centre. Liberators began the attack with 5000 fragmentation bombs, destroying or damaging 16 grounded planes and warding off two interceptors. More than 60 Liberators then roared over followed by 40 Thunderbolts, strafing and rocketing from low levels. Forty Liberators and Thunderbolts started large fires in the West Kyushu industrial city of Omuta (180,000 population, containing two of Japan’s largest zinc smelters. Ninety Thunderbolts and Mustangs probably destroyed a nitroglycerine factory in Yatsushiro Bay in West Kyushu. Forty other Thunderbolts started a string of fires along almost the length of the west coast. Fifteen grounded planes were destroyed. The Tokio radio said 240 Russian planes to-day bombed land targets in Korea. Fifty unidentified bombers seemingly inexperienced raided a convoy off Korea and 14 of the raiders were shot down. The Tokio radio says the Russians have driven into the Japanese positions near Chihko in Northern Manchukuo. Admiral Nimitz announced that American carriers this morning knocked out 181 planes and a number of small ships

off Northern Honshu. Results of the later attacks were not available.

A Chunking spokesman declared that the Japs were preparing to return to Manchuria the five Kwantung divisions allocated to the China coast antiinvasion defences. General Wedemeyer said the Russian intervention would justify greater calculated risks in committing Chinese troops to action and would also accelerate the ChineseAmerican effort to open a port for receiving supplies. General Wedemeyer told a press conference that the use of atomic bombs was “very much under consideration in the China theatre wherever military necessity dictates. He added that Shanghai was a possible military target. It was presiuned that leaflet warnings would be distributed prior to the bombings in occupied Chinese territory to avert the loss of civilian life.