Tuesday, May 21, 2013

May 16, 1945 Japanese Home Bases Hit

THISWAS REPORTED TODAY, MAY 16, 1945:


The Abilene Daily Reporter News

 

Carrier Planes Blast 18 Nip Home Bases

 

ABILENE, TEXAS, WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAY 16, 1945-TEN PAGES

 

Hot Ground

Fight Rages

GUAM, Wednesday, May 16.—(AP)—Carrier planes hammered 18 Nipponese homeland airfields and destroyed, damaged or strafed 357 enemy planes in a sweep beginning Saturday night and continuing through Monday. Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, announcing the carrier raids on the fields from which Japan has been staging aerial  onslaughts on the American forces at Okinawa, said fierce

fighting continued there today.

 

A strong Japanese counter-attack on the west flank was beaten back by the Sixth divisions, veterans  of Eniwetok and Orote peninsula, while 77th divisions troops captured "Chocolate Drop" hill about 1,800 yards northeast of fortress Shurt

after five days of bitter fighting.

The three-day attack on Kyushu and Shikoku was the first American strong Japanese counter-attack the west flank was beaten back carrier strike in force since the Inland sea raid on March 19. Radio Tokyo previously had reported 900 planes were Involved.

It started with a torpedo plane strike on Kyushu Saturday night. Twelve enemy planes were shot down. •— •

Sunday and Monday, Japanese planes were destroyed or damaged and an additional 73 were brought under machine- gun and rocket attack with unobserved results.

A-barrage balloon was shot down. A preliminary check revealed that 10 U. S. planes were lost.

Vice Adm. Marc A.- Mitschner's carrier planes also struck' targets of opportunity during the two – day sweep.

 

Solons Report Torture Camps 'Organized Crime

WASHINGTON, May 15.—(AP)—In shocked silence, Congress heard

from its own eyewitnesses today the gruesome story of Germany's torture

camps where thousands of slaves lived like cattle and died like beasts.

The report of six senators and six representatives who visited three

notorious concentration camps was read simultaneously in the two chambers

by Senator Barkeley (D.-Ky.) and Rep. Thomason (D.-Tex.)

 It was a bitter denunciation of the German government—an indictment on the high charge of mass murder. It did not spare the German public.

Senator Barkeley did not spare the German army either. He said

it was inconceivable that the general staff would not have known

about the savage practices of the SS and gestapo.

"It Is the opinion of your committee that these practice! Constituted no less than organized crime against civilization and humanity," the report said, "and those who were responsible for them should have meted out to them swift, certain and adequate punishment."

The investigations conferred with war crimes commission in London

and the French commission, praising the steps already taken for prosecution

of war criminals in Germany. This work is well underway, the

report said, and thus there is no need for the committee to recommend

any action.

The 12 legislators visited Buchenwald, Nordenhausen and Dachau, the

most notorious camps for political prisoners. They saw the dead, they saw

the dying. Barkley said some helpless captives died while the American

investigators were there.

Dachau was overrun so fast by the American troops, the report said that none of the evidence of the atrocities could be destroyed. This wa largely true of Buchenwald too. At Nordhausen U.S. forces had ha three weeks to put things in shape but the story was the same, traced back through witnesses.

It was a story of planned starvation, of use of German criminals to

destroy the mentality "of all those who opposed the master race," of

huge ovens for cremating victims, and of torture devices.

Barkley said the magnitude of the horror could be understood only

"by the stench" of the places, and "smell of death."

The report said everywhere there was evidence that the German civilian was fat and well clothed.

The 12 concluded that the contrast pointed to 'a calculated and diabolical program of planned torture and extermination on the part of those who were in control of the German government."

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