FINAL ASSAULT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25924, 16 August 1945, Page 4

FINAL ASSAULT

Japanese Zone Entered TERRIFIC AIR ONSLAUGHT Guarding the south-eastern approaches to the Japanese homeland were the Bonin Islands, and on February 18, 1945, United States forces landed on Iwo Jima, a strategically important member of the group. Despite the fanatical resistance of the defenders, the island was occupied on March 16, and a fortnight later Okinawa, a large island in the Ryukyu chain extending from the Japanese mainland to Formosa, was invaded by Allied forces. The attack was supported by a powerful fleet, including battleships of the British Pacific Fleet. Six days afterwards, on April 6, a Japanese fleet endeavoured to interrupt the progress of the invasion, and in the resulting-battle the Yamato, Japan’s largest battleship, and five other enemy warships were sunk, and the survivors escaped into home waters, where they remained until the end of the war.

Japan’s position was by now desperate, and it was not improved by the action of Russia in denouncing their mutual neutrality pact on April 5.'. On April 14 the devastating Allied air raids on the principal Japanese cities, which were to rise to a shattering crescendo in later months, commenced. Tokoi, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe were 1 ' visited in turn by large forces of Super-Fortresses based on the Marianas, and thousands of tons of fire bombs rained down on the crowded cities. Giving point to the conviction that Japan’s doom was inevitable, Allied naval units stood in to the coast of Honshu, the principal island of the Japanese homeland, and shelled the Tokio area, while air fleets hammered the remnants of the Japanese Fleet hiding in Tokio Bay. On July 26 the Nations’ leaders at Potsdam issued an ultimatum to Japan, calling upon her to surrender or be destroyed, and when the ultimatum was rejected the air assault on Japan reached a terrifying pitch of intensity. Then, on August 5, came an event that shook the entire civilised world. A new and infinitely terrible weapon, the atomic bomb, was used against the enemy, and Hiroshima was devastated to an unbelievable extent by one bomb. Hard on the heels of this disaster came Russia’s declaration of war against Japan, on August 9, which coincided with the destruction of a considerable part of Nagasaki by a second atomic bomb. The full import of these blows was at last recognised by the Japanese leaders, and Japan’s period of Pacific dominion was at an end.