Japs Jammed
Into 8 Square
Miles of Island
By ROBBERT COONS
GUAM—(AP)—American
soldiers and marines fought forward behind flamethrowing tanks on t he southern
Okinawa plateau today in a campaign which Lt. Gen. Simon Boliver Buckner, Jr.,
said should secure the entire island within a week. Late frontline dispatches
estimated the possibility 10,000 remaining
Japanese now were compressed into
an eight-square-mile area. Buckner's Tenth Army speared ahead in the center and
at both ends of the 3-mile-long line against resistance that still was ferocious
despite the enemy's great casualties and the fact that many of the defenders
were service troops or Okinawa conscripts.
'Big
Apple' Falls.
In the center, the 96 infantry
division, commanded by Maj. Gen. James L. Bradley, completed the Capture yesterday of 500-foothigh Yaeju hill, which the
troops call "The Big Apple," and then Yuza hill with tanks to knock out
positions from which the Japanese were heavily-harassing the First Marine
Division flank.
Robert Geiger, Associated Press
correspondent reporting from the top of Yaeju hill, said that the line
alreadyhad advanced a half-mile beyond the peak.
Maj. Gen. Pedro A. Del Valle's First Marines, a mile and a
half westward on Kunishi ridge, consolidated their hold despite a plunging
automatic fire from the Japanese on Yuza hill a and sent patrols out ahead of their lines.
The marines Thursday night
repulsed a small JJapanese counterattack and numerous infiltration attempts.
Tough on Tanks.
Yanks
Smash
Toward
North
Tip of
Luzon
MANILA. — {AP) —
American troops were out on the floor of the broad and fertile Cagayan Valley today, pounding
along at nearly a mile an hour within 150 miles of Aparri at t h e northern
tip of Luzon.
Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beigler's 37th
Ohio Infantrymen, who h a d been battling north along a tortuous mountain gorge
for three and a half months, smashed through Japanese resistance
yesterday and headed out across the flatlands in a race with the July typhoon
season.
When t h e typhoons strike they
will bring flood waters raging over the valley's low-lying tobacco, rice, and
corn lands, bogging down motor vehicles and grounding aircraft.
Liberate
Two Towns.
The veteran Buckeyes rolled ahead
22 miles in 24 hours after breaking through the last Japanese defenses at the
valley's southern gateway, and liberated the important Isabella Province towns
of Santiago and Echague.
The 37th Division's advance into
Cagayan Valley marked the first time any of Mac Arthur’s troops have been
fighting on level terrain since they crossed the central plain to Manila in
January.
French Attack
Franco Troops
CHAMBERY, France.— (U.P.) —
French resistance members fought
an hour-long pitched battle here late yesterday with troops of t he Spanish
Blue Division, which fought the Russians on the eastern front, and killed -12
Spaniards. Approximately 100 Spaniards and several Frenchmen were wounded in the
fighting.
A sealed train brought the Spaniards
here on their way home to Spain from Switzerland, where they had been interned
after fighting as volunteers with the Wehrmacht on the eastern front.
As the train drew into Chambery
Station, the French attacked. They smashed windows and ripped' off doors to get
at the Spaniards inside.
Truk Battered
By Carriers
SAN FRANCISCO.— (AP) — An Allied
carrier raid Ion by-passed Truk Island fortress went into
its third day today, Tokyo Radio reported,- after an hour-long bombardment by a
supporting naval task force. Japanese broadcasters "presumed" British
fleet and carrier units made the attack on the island group in the center of the
Carolines.
These unconfirmed, broadcasts recorded-
by the Federal Communications Commission, included the first
report of a task force bombardment of Truk. It was
Repeatedly raided by U.S. carrier aircraft during the
days when it' was one of the most formidable of Japan’s island outposts.
Truk is now encircled by Allied held,bases.
The strike began _ Thursday when
about 60 sea-borne aircraft raided the isolated base, once Japan’ s greatest
stronghold in the Central Pacific, broadcasts heardby the Federal Communications commission
said.
A task force of about two
cruisers and four destroyers followed up yesterday with an hour-long; bombardment
supported by about 30 carrier planes. Sixty seaborne aircraft "presumably
operating from an aircraft carrier of the British Pacific Fleet carried
the attack into the third day, Tokyo said, with a five-hour raid.
The
Japanese Domei News: Agency claimed that several raiding planes, were shot
down- .
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