December 8, 1944;QUAK/TIDAL WAVES HIT JAPAN

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, DECEMBER 8, 1944:

Worst Quake in

Century Rocks

Nippon Isles

By United Press

The Japanese admitted today that an earthquake, described by British seismologists as even more violent than the 1923 Yokohama disaster that killed 10,-

000 persons, rolled up huge tidal waves and loosed landslides yesterday across a 150-mile belt of Central Japan that extended through the teeming Tokyo

area.

After withholding: all news of the temblor for more than 24 hours, the Tokyo radio finally broke its silence early this morning to announce that the most populous center of the Japanese homeland had been hit yesterday afternoon.

“Damage "Slight"

The Tokyo broadcasts insisted, however, that only "slight" damage had been caused and "that practically none of the capital district's crowded war plants were affected.

The Japanese Domei news agency said the earthquake centered in the sea about 100 miles southeast of Tokyo and reported that a great wall of water rolled inland over the coastal areas of Shizuoka district, flooding ''some houses."

Streets Caved In

The crew of a lone B-29 Supcrfortress which bombed the city of Shizuoka at 12:10 a. m. today, nearly 32 hours after the first recorded shock, reported from Saipan that the city was a glitter with ights.

Farther inland and extending up to the Tokyo-Yokohama district, landslides caved in streets and louses over a wide area, Domei

Enemy Base on

Tokyo Run

Takes Pounding

PACIFIC FLEET-HEADQUARTERS,

Dec. 8 (U.P)—

The United Stales Pacific fleet, Saipan-based Superfortresses, and army Liberators and Lightning fighters delivered a massive coordinated attack on Iwo

island, strategic enemy base on the southeastern approaches to the Japanese homeland yesterday, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz announced today. \.

It was one of the greatest simultaneous assaults ever carried out against a single target by combined American sea and air units.

Heaviest Blow

(Mac R. Johnson, United Press correspondent on Saipan, said the Superfortresses struck their heaviest blow of the war in the Iwo raid. The air field was the main target he said. The B-29s were able to carry a tremendous bombload because of the comparatively short hop. Iwo lies approximately 750 miles northwest of Saipan—about halfway to Tokyo.)

(Johnson also reported that a lone B-29 bombed Shizuoka, Japanese rail center on the coast of Honshu, 100 miles south of Tokyo, today, setting four major fires in the  center of the city that could be seen burning for 200 miles.)

Gen. Patton Army Drives

Big Dent in Siegfried Line

PATTON ARMY PINCERS

SQUEEZE SAARBRUCKEN

PARIS, Dec. 8.—(UP)—

American Third army troops crashed across the Saar river at four places in and southwest of Sarreguemines today, boosting to seven the number of bridgehead: established across the water barrier and setting pincers around Saarbrucken. Far behind, the stubborn German holdout post of Fort Driant in the Metz perimeter finally was captured.

PARIS. Doc. 8.—(U.P)—

Hard fighting American troops crashed into the suburbs of Saarbrucken today and hammered out gains up to three miles in scattered sectors of a winding 250- mile front between the Cologne plain and the upper Rhine valley.

The United Slates Third army stormed the purl of Saarbrueken lying on (he west side of the Saar river and to the northwest drilled into the Siegfried line pillboxes, penetrating a depth of a mile and a half.