WAR IN PACIFIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25203, 16 May 1945, Page 6

WAR IN PACIFIC

BBITISH FLEET'S TASK ENEMY AIR ATTACK FAIL* (From Noel Chappell, P.a Corr«„- .. with the British Pacific - '1 ABOARD A CRUISER Ma , R • While the Allied Nations ioy ol Lli • celebrated the surrender of German British Pacific Fleet task force tod' 1 '"h again trailed its coajt in Japan's- back*' : < yard. It was sent on a succession of 0 strikes with carrier aircraft over almost ! boringly familiar but important taS' in the bakishuna Islands, thus sustain tug the task given b v Admirals Xim t and Spruance to interrupt the flow 'tl enemy aircraft to Okinawa bv donn" in« thenf of fields,,and destroy itig any aircraft found in the airT on the ground. ur It was again found that the biiw Japanese had repaired some of W ' fields sufficiently to fly off aircraft 0 These fields were cratered. Dispersal areas and other targets were al™ bombed and.rocketed. Two grounded air craft were strafed and burned ami some motor transport was destroved Enemy ingenuity i s shown In ths discovery of a dive-bomber parked m a beach cave. A detached pilot who went in almost at ground level strnfZa it, followed by all the other aircraft of his flight, until it wa,burned out The task force was attacked at 5 p.m. by a group of planes which catto possibly from Eormosa. They made very fast approach and although one was shot down by our fighters, got in close and made direct attacks on several units. All four dived to their destruction in front of our eves. One enemy plane was hit by'gunfire in the last few hundred yards in at attack on a battleship and plunged with huge splash off its port beam. Two others bounced off ships into the sea where they exploded. The fourth hit a deck and started fires, which were iooii put out. Within .. few minutes all that remained of these "kamikazes," as the suicide planes are called, was a white parachute floating in the sea, with a dead pilot, in green flying uniform attached. At the end of the attack all the enemy aircraft 'were destroyed ,and the task force imperturbably "steamed on at unreduced speed or efficiency,