June 13, 1945; Borneo Oil Fields Set on Fire

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JUNE 13, 1945:

PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1945.

 

PLATEAU IS

SCALED BY

AMERICANS

'Banzai Charges Are

Smashed In Furious

Combat, Report

By William F. Tyre.

GUAM, June 13 (UP). —

American troops, armed with special flame-throwers. Burned a path through Japanese fortification* atop Yaeju-Dake plateau on Okinawa today and smashed desperate "banzai" charges by doomed enemy survivors.

One of the greatest artillery barrages of the Pacific war shattered several enemy troop concentrations on the summit o£ the cliffs, where trapped Japanese were making a suicide stand.

Rope Ladders Used

Marine and infantrymen scaled to the top of the plateau on rope ladders, then used the same ropes to haul up other troops and their supplies.

The defenders virtually were surrounded. The First Marine division on the west, the 96th Army division on the north and the Seventh Army division on the east cracked through primary defenses and stormed across the plateau from three sides. It may be the final battle of Okinawa.

United Press War Correspondent E. G. Valens reported from 10^th Army headquarters that cornered Japanese troops hurled themselves at advancing Americans in suicide assaults.

64  Japs Killed

In one of the largest counterattacks, approximately 300 Japanese carrying dynamite satchels charged First Marine division positions on the western front. The leathernecks killed 64, Including one woman.

 

AUSSIES ON

ISLE DRIVE

ON BRUNEI

Smoke Columns Are

Seen In Direction

Of Borneo Town

By Don Caswell

MANILA, June 13 (UP).

The Japanese put the torch to rich oil installations on north Borneo today : as Australian troops advanced slowly toward Brunei through thick jungle country.

Reports from the front field, that columns of smoke were seen and explosions' echoed from the direction of Brunei, capital of the sultanate of the same name. The Japanese troops were believed firing both the town and nearby oil installations.

 

JAPAN TO HIKE

EFFORT IN WAR

'Drastic. Intensification' Is

Promised By Premier

SAN FRANCISCO, June 13 (UP).

—Premier Kantaro Suzuki promised "drastic intensification" of Japan's war effort today. He told the closing session of the 87th extraordinary session of the Japanese diett, that his government would make the best possibly use of the emergency granted by dictatorial policies of the Diet in this crucial stage of the war."