EXTENSIVE DAMAGE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23261, 24 July 1945, Page 5

EXTENSIVE DAMAGE

Sea And Air Raids On Japan Reconnaissance Reports By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright (Received 8.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 22. EXTENSIVE damage was inflicted on enemy combatant vessels, merchant shipping, airfields, transport and other military installations by British and American carrier aircraft which struck targets near Tokio on Wednesday afternoon, says Admiral Nimitz’s communique. The attacking aircraft bombed, rocketed and strafed installations in an area extending from the Yokosuka Navy Yard to Alito Kiryu on the northern edge of Kanto plain. They encountered no enemy airborne opposition. Flak was heavy over the Yokosuka Navy Yard, but diminished as the pilots bombed gun positions. Detailed reports show the following results: A destroyer, a cable-layer, three small cargo ships and seven motor torpedo-boats sunk; the battleship Nagato, the superstructure of which was heavily damaged, antiaircraft converted destroyer, an old destroyer, four luggers and two small craft damaged. Six locomotives, four hangars, an ammunition dump, an oil tank and a power plant transformer were also destroyed. Thirty aircraft were destroyed on the ground and 42 damaged. Our losses were 12 aircraft. Preliminary reconnaissance reports show that the bombardment of industrial establishments at Hitachi by American battleships, cruisers, destroyers and units of the British Pacific Fleet last Tuesday evening damaged the copper refinery, inflicted severe damage on the Hitachi engineering works and the Hitachi arms factory.

Light forces o.’ the Third Fleet ojLeiating five miles west of Nokima (ape to-day encountered a fourshin convoy. They sank a medium cargo ship, a small cargo ship and damaged the escort vessel. Other light units attacked the town of Omura on Chici Jima with gunfire. Search aircraft destroyed a small coastal cargo ship and six small craft. They also left two small cargo ships burning. Privateers yesterday sank a small coastal cargo ship off the east coast of Tsushima Island and damaged a large cargo ship.

The Nagato is 26 years old, but has been modernised. She is one of two regular battleships the Japanese are known to have commissioned concurrently. Super-Fortresses dropped 450 tons of demolition bombs on the coal liquefaction plant at Übe. The Tokio radio said that 200 Mustangs started fires in the Osaka and Kobe districts with machine-gun attacks. The radio warned the people that the British and American fleets, which had maintained a radio silence since Thursday, might again attack the homeland at any moment.