Wednesday, July 31, 2013

July 31, 1945; U. S. DESTROYERS IN SURUGA GULF:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 31, 1945:


RENO, NEVADA. TUESDAY. JULY 31. 1945

 207 Vessels,
430 Planes Hit
In Two Days
Daring Destroyers
Go to Suruga Gulf
To Bombard Plant

GUAM, July 31. (.P)—Raiding Allied carrier planes destroyed or damaged 207 Japanese vessels and 430 planes in two days, Admiral Nimitz announced today as daring U. S. destroyers knifed deep into Suruga gulf to bombard the enemy's largest aluminum plant.

ATTACKS CONTINUE

The bombardment, 80 miles southwest of Tokyo, was the seventh against Japan and carried the combined American-British sea-air attacks into the 22nd consecutive day.

Preliminary reports on yesterday's aerial sweeps over 400 miles of Honshu island and revised totals on last Saturday's devastating attack which wrote the end to the imperial navy showed a total of 52 enemy warships sunk or damaged.

Most of them were crippled or sent to the bottom at two naval bases—Kure and Maizuru.

12 Jap Cities
Given Warning
Areas Marked
For Destruction

GUAM, July 31. (AP) — Twelve Japanese cities, including four previously warned, were given notice tonight by Maj. Gen. Curtis E. Lemay that they are marked for destruction by American Superfortresses.

TOLD TO FLEE

"Evacuate these cities immediately," the commander of the 20th air force warned in 720,000 leaflets dropped from six Superforts on the doomed municipalities. More than 1,300,000 persons live in the 12 cities.

Thus for the second time within four days General Lemay gave advance notice to Japan of industrial and military targets where the B-29s soon will apply the torch.

The eight cities added to the previous list are Mito, Hachioji, Maebashi Toyama, Nagano, Fukuyama, Otsu and Maizuru, all industrial and transportation centers on Honshu.

Today's notice also included Nagaoka and Nishmomiya on Honshu, Hakodate on Hokkaido and Kurume on Kyushu which were given their first warning last Saturday. Koriyarha on Honshu was also on the first warning list but was not mentioned today.

 Hirohito's Fate
Splits War Allies
Treatment To Be Given Emperor
Complicates Demand for Surrender

Washington, July 31, (AP)  Allied councils are divided sharply over the treatment to be accorded Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

The difference of views, which spreads among groups within the United States government as well as among other governments, is understood-here to have been the basic reason why- the Potsdam ultimatum to Japan omitted all reference to Hirohito or to the monarchyas an institution.

As a result, the way still is open for the Japanese to try to save their emperor as the Pinnacle of their government. However. American officials say they are hurting their chances by delaying inevitable capitulation.

Although Premier Suzuki's rejection of the Potsdam demand is described here as something of a poker move in the hope of winning higher stakes, there is at the moment a lessening hope of any immediate surrender on the part of Tokyo.

 

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

July 30, 1945; BATTLESHIPS BLAST INDUSTRIAL AREAS:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 31, 1945:


Pittsfield., Massachusetts. Monday July 30, 1945.

Mighty Allied Battleships
Blast Industrial Centers
Carriers Send Their Flocks
Of Planes Over 300-Mile
Area in Pre-Invasion Strike
GUAM (UP)—More than 1000 earner planes blasted and burned a 300-mile stretch of Central Japan from Tokyo to the great Osaka-Kobe industrial area today—the 21st day of an offensive softening the enemy homeland for invasion.

Radio'Tokyo said the raids began at 5:30 AM and still were going on at 3 PM, almost 10 hours later.

Close to Shore

Before dawn, American and British battleships and other Third Fleet units set fire to the Japanese industrial center of Hamamatsu, roughly midway between Tokyo and Kobe, with a bold pre-dawn, bombardment from only six miles offshore.

Tokyo broadcasts said surface units also shelled the southeast part o£ Kii Peninsula, below Hanvimalsu, after the main bombardment.

British Ships
Raid Malaya
Coastline
Australians
Chase Japs
Through Borneo

CALCUTTA (UP)--The Southeast Asia Command announced today that a British naval task force steamed near the west coast of Malaya,  northwest of Singapore last week and spread havoc among Japanese .shipping, coastal installations, air fields, transport and  troop concentration.

 

Yamashita
Carries on
Personal War
Jap General Core
Of Final Philippine
Resistance

WITH U. S. 14TH ARMY CORPS

Northern Luzon (AP)—A personal war between Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita and American and Filipino forces, fought in an area so high that clouds often interrupt combat, dominates the final three-pronged campaign to eliminate 24,000 Japanese on Luzon.

A total of 12,226 counted enemy dead in the first 27 days of July testifies to bitterness of this conflict.

It is characterized by the terrain, which Lt. Gen. Oscar W Griswold, commander of the 14th Corps, termed the most rugted he  ever encountered. Stubborn enemy resistance is colored by the fact an unusually high total of 1,543-----

Adolf Hitler's
Death Not Yet
Fully Proved

BERLIN (UP)—Col. Gen. Alexander V. Gorbatov said today there is still is no definite proof that Adolf Hitler is dead, and an investigation is continuing to determine wheter he still is alive Gorbatov is the Russian representative on the interallied command o£ Berlin, also called the komman'dantur.

"We do not exclude the possibility that Hitler is still alive and in hiding," Gorbatov said at a press conference.


The Berkshire Evening
EagleMonday July 30, 1945.          Page 5
New B-32's Join Air Arm In Pacific
Will Be Biggest Bomber in Kenney's Force

 WASHINGTON (AP)—The new B-32 heavy bomber is in the growing air fleet which Gen. George C. Kenney's Far East Air Force is sending against Japan. Although smaller than the B-29's used by the 20th Air .Force, the B-32's are the biggest bombers in Kenney's force which includes Flying Fortresses and Liberators.

Built by Consolidated Vultee, the bomber is described officially as capable of high altitude and very long range. The B-32 can lift the equivalent of-' its own weight—empty It weighs 60,272 pounds, its overload weight Is 120,000 pounds, Its four engines develop 2200 horsepower each, giving a speed in excess of 300 miles an hour. Armament details are secret. Its 135-foot wingspan is about six feet less than that of the B-29, but 23 longer than the B-24 Liberator. Former B-24 crewmen who took transition training compose the flrst B-32 crews to see combat, the Army reports.

 

Chinese Mop
Up in Former
American Base

CHUNGKING (UP) — Chinese troops have mopped up Japanese remnants in Kweilin's suburbs and other units have overtaken the retreating enemy at Linghewaii, 15 miles to the; northeast, a headquarters communique announced today.

One Chinese column moving northeust of Kweilin is preparing to attack simultaneously with a second column pushing from the west, the communique said. Linghcwan, on the Hunan-Kwangsi railroad is believed due to fall within a matter of hours.

 

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Monday, July 29, 2013

July 29, 1945; Allied Surrender Ultimatum Refused

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 29, 1945:


Kingsport, Tenn., Sunday, July 29, 1945

 5 5O To 600 Planes
Slash Six Cities;
Jap Navy Hard Hit

 Guam, Sunday—(AP)—Massive Superfortress task forces lashed six Japanese cities with 3,500 tons of explosive flame today—little more than 24 hours after their inhabitants had been bluntly warned by the B-29 command to flee for their lives.

Part of the vast aerial fleet of 550 to 600 planes came for the first time—from Iwo Jima, 750 miles nearer Japan than the Marianas flying fields, thus placing all Japan within range of the Superfortresses.

Gen. MacArthur simultaneously reported Okinawa-based planes had raided the Inland Sea area, and disclosed that the new B-32 super-bomber has been operating for two months against the enemy in Luzon and Formosa. . .

The sky-filling swarms of B-29s split into seven task forces. One struck an oil refinery near Shimotsu, 45 miles south of Osaka. The others splashed their .huge load of incendiaries on six of the 11 cities on which 20th Air Force headquarters had dropped warning leaflets yesterday: Tsu, Aomori, Ichinomiya, Ujiyamada and Ogachi on Honshu and Uwajima on Shikoku.

They struck a little more than 24 hours after Maj.- Gen. Curtis Le May sent word to the enemy from his 30th Air Force Headquarters here by bomber sacattered pamphlets which named the targets.

 

Minami Says Japs
Not To Accept Terms

San Francisco—JP—The president of Japan's powerful totalitarian political party declared Saturday his country would never accept the Allied surrender ultimatum, as Nippon awaited an address by Premier Suzuki on the war and the coming "battle of the streets."

While the Japanese government officially remained silent on the edict from Potsdam, and Tokyo's newspapers reached a common refrain  of rejection, Gen. Jiro Minami, president of the Political Association of Great Japan, gave the first reaction to the ultimatum by an acknowledged public figure.

Radio Tokyo quoted Minami as saying Japan would never quit and the "entire Japanese nation will remain absolutely unaffected In their resalute determination to save their -Country from national extermination."

 

13 Die When
Plane Hits
Skyscraper

New York —AP— A fog-blinded Army bomber crashed into the Empire State Building at the 79th story Saturday and exploded inside with an earth-shaking roar, killing three fliers and at least ten office workers and turning the world's tallest building into a smoking, flaming torch in the sky.

The bizarre disaster injured 24 persons, six seriously, and while rescue workers searched the twisted, blackened wreckage of 78th and 79th floor offices, police said the death toll may exceed 15. Army and F i r e Department investigations were under way.

The eight-ton, twin-engined B-25 "Billy Mitchell" plane, groping through a thick fog toward the Newark Airport, rammed the 102- story skyscraper at 9:49 a.m., sending blazing gasoline cascading through offices and down elevatorshafts, jarring the area like an earthquake, and showering broken glass and debris into crowded business streets for five blocks around. Police said no pedestrians were injured.

Panic Spreads '"'

Panic spread among some of the 1,500 persons in the building, but police said virtually all were evacuated in orderly fashion within 30 minutes. The area was blocked off from a quickly gathering crowd of many thousands.

 

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

July 28, 1945; GREATEST AIR STRIKE IN HISTORY:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 28, 1945:


HUNTINGDON, PA., SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1945.

GREATEST STRIKE
IN HISTORY; JAP
RESISTANCE WEAK

 

By WILLIAM F. TYREE
United Press Co-respondent
Guam, July 28. —The greatest carrier strike in history turned Nippon's inland sea into a graveyard of wrecked and burning Japanese ships today as some 2,000 warplanes of Admiral William F. Halsey's third fleet resumed the attack on the Kure naval base. -:

Slamming in at dawn through a sky full of flak and fighters, Halsey's American and British fliers blazed a new trail of death' and ruin across waters still dotted with the hulks of 308 enemy ships smashed in their first onslaught last Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first wave of attacking dive bombers spotted the 30,000-ton battleship Hyuga lying on the sandy bottom of Nasaka Jima harbor, outside Kure, her decks awash and her superstructure burned out.

The great ship and 22 other warships, the last major fighting force in the Imperial Navy, were holed by Allied bombs and rocket, fire Tuesday.

Japanese broadcasts said about 670 carrier planes attacked wide areas of southern Honshu and northern Shokoku. today, concentrating on Kure and the Inland Sea region. They said the targets included Hiroshima, Southern Osaka, and Takamatsu.

 

REPORT BIG AIR SEA

FIGHT RAGING

IN MALAYA AREA

Manila, July 28.—Radio Tokyo said today that a fierce air-sea battle was raging off the Malayan Peninsula as Allied troops for the f i f t h day persisted, in their attempts to invade Puket Island.

The Japanese Domei Agency claimed enemy suicide planes had sunk "one Allied cruiser and, heavily damaged another which was probably a converted aircraft carrier." Domei said the Allied naval task force had pushed up in close support of a second landing on
Thursday and that today its heavy guns were raking shore
installations on Puket with a tremendous bombardment.

 

Saturday, July 27, 2013

July 27, 1945; JAPANESE REJCT PEACE OFFER /


THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 25, 1945:



SAN MATAO, CALIFORNIA, FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1945

WASHINGTON, July 27.- (U.P)—Japan rejected the American-British-Chinese surrender ultimatum today despite the clear warning: that she NOW faces' 'prompt and utter destruction" by the mighty allied land, sea and air forces assembled in the Pacific.

The Japanese stand was announced by the government-controlled Domei News agency in a dispatch saying that Japan would ignore the allied ultimatum issued yesterday in Potsdam and would fight on "to the bitter end."

Cabinet Meets

Domei said the Japanese cabinet held a special meetings this afternoon (Tokyo time) to hear a report from Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo on the terms in which the allies would agree to halt hostilities.

The decision to take no action on the ultimatum apparently was made at that meeting.

By its stand, the Japanese government itself rejected the last opportunity to halt the war without ending Japan's national existence and without bringing untold misery and suffering to her people.

Alternative Clear

President Truman, former British Prime Minister Churchill and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek made clear yesterday what Japan would receive if she rejected their final terms for ending the war.

Devastation Certain

"The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland." Japan laid herself open to that devastation and that destruction by

(Turn to Page 2. Column 7)

 MORE ABOUT—
Japs Reject
Peace Offer
(Continued from Page 1)

rejecting the Potsdam surrender terms.

Before the Japanese decision was revealed, Chairman Tom Connely  (D., Texas) of the senate foreign | relations committee and other' prominent senators warned that the  alternative to the Potsdam surrender terms was "national hari-kari."
 
LEAFLETS LIST NAMES
OF ELEVEN NIP CITIES
NEXT TO BE DESTROYED
GUAM, July 28.—(U.P.)
America's 20th air force, putting teeth into the Potsdam ultimatum, today told the Japanese the names of the next 11 Nipponese cities which will be burned out by Superfortress raids, in a move unprecedented in any war.
As three more of Japan's flimsy war centers were still flaming from the last B-29 incendiary raid, six Superforts cruised over the 11 targets-to-be at midnight, dropping 60,000 leaflets warning civilians to evacuate or be burned
out.
Thus the Twentieth air force, for the first time in any war naming its targets in advance, laid down the most direct challenge possible to the Japanese to fight, quit or
else.
Maj. Gen. Curtis E. Lemay, commander of the Twentieth, declared: "The Japs have nothing to look
forward to except total destruction.
We've reached the point where they refuse to fight while we burn down their cities. Now we're telling them where we're going to do it,"
Cities Named
The leaflets, psychological prods to the thinking element of Japan, named the following target cities
including nine new B-29 targets to be added to the 49 already hit by devastating fire raids:
On Honshu: Ichinomiya, Tsu, Ujiyamada, Nagaoka, Nishinomiya, Aomori, Ogaki and Koriyama. On Shikoku: Uwajima. On Kyushu: Kurumc. On Hokkaido: Hokariate.
All are secondary industrial centers with populations of between 50,000 and 200,000.
Of these cities, three have been attacked heavily before. Ichinomiya, a city of 50,000 population, has been 50 per cent destroyed by B-29 raids, and Uwa Jima, 52,000 population, was 16 per cent destroyed. They were last attacked July 11.


 

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Friday, July 26, 2013

July 26, 1945; JAPANESE PROUD NAVY OUT OF COMMISSION:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 25, 1945:


HUTCHINSON, KANSAS, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 1945

Nimitz Lists
Damaging Of
20 Vessels

Guam (/P)—Twenty Japanese warships, including three battleships, six aircraft carriers and five cruisers, wert. damaged by American and British carrier pilots in Admiral Halsey's great 1,200 plane strike against Inland sea bases Tuesday.

 

Stalin Carried
Peace Offer?

New York (/P)—Newsweek Magazine say Generalissimo Stalin took the Big Three a Japanese peace offer with the proviso that the Japanese home islands remain free of American Invasion and occupation.

The magazine says also, without giving the source of the information, that Widar Bagge, retiring Swedish minister to Japan, transmitted to the United States early last May a "Japanese request for clarification of the American 'unconditional surrender' formula,"

The article says In part; "As a price of "Russian nonintervention, the Japanese offered to withdraw from Manchuria In favor of Moscow. Moreover, they offered to 'recognize the principle of independence" of Indo-China, Burma and the Philippines and to submit to American occupation of Korea and even Formosa on one condition—that, the Japanese home  land.s should remain. free of  American invasion and occupation.

 
RENO, NEVADA, THURSDAY MORNING, JULY 26, 1945

 3 Battleships, 5 Cruisers,
6 Carriers Badly Damaged

 

GUAM, Thursday, July 26. (UP)—U. S. and British carrier planes of the Third fleet damaged 20 Japanese warships, including three battleships, five cruisers and six aircraft carriers, in Tuesday's destructive attacks on the Inland Sea which virtually knocked out the last vestiges of Nippon's once-proud navy, it was announced today.

In addition, a total of 170 Japanese planes were destroyed or damaged and 84 merchant ships were sunk or damaged as more than 1,200 of Adm. William F. Halsey's carrier planes hurled the most crushing carrier blow of the war at the shuddering Japanese homeland.

Another 39 Japanese planes were destroyed or damaged in yesterday's assaults on the Inland Sea, but only preliminary reports of that attack were available when Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced what appeared to be the death blow to the Japanese fleet.

Among "the damaged warships was the elusive battleship Haruna, pounded by the late Capt. Colin Kelly off the Philippines in the opening days of the war, and the aircraft carrier Amagi, one of Japan's "super carriers."

The half battleships-half carriers Ise and Hyuga also were damaged, Nimitz announced.

That made a total of four battleships—all Japan was believed to have seaworthy—blasted in a week. The battleship Nagato was damaged heavily in last Wednesday's attack on the Yokosuka naval base.

 

 

 Japs Build
Huge Forts
Underground

By GEORGE WANG
United Press War Correspondent

CHUNGKING, July 25.( U. P.)

The Japanese army, preparing for suicidal stands in northeast China, has built a series of giant fortresses underneath Nanking,  Peiping and other large cities,  reliable sources said today.

Construction of underground railways, motor ways, formidable defense points and store rooms began after the U. S. invasion of Iwo Jima, it was reported. The program was stepped up when Okinawa was invaded.

The Japanese high command reportedly'-.anticipates an allied invasion in" the Nanking-Shanghai-Hangchow triangle. These underground forts are designed to make the assault as costly as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 
 
 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

July 25, 1945; HEAVY ASSAULTS ON JAPANESE NAVY REPORTED:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 25, 1945:


RENO, NEVADA, WEDNESDAY MORNING. JULY 25, 1945

U.S.-BRITISH
FLEET SENDS
1000BOMBERS

Fierce New Attacks
On Inland Sea
Of Japan

By WILLIAM F. TYREE
United Press War Correspondent
GUAM, Wednesday, July 25. (U.P.)
More than 1,000 carrier planes of Adm. William F. Halsey's American and British Third Fleet launched devastating new attacks on Japan's Inland Sea today after damaging seven warships, including the enemy's last two known remaining serviceable battleships, in yesterday's dawn-to-dusk assaults, it was announced today.

 Two battleships — the Ise and Hyuga—were damaged along with two heavy cruisers, a light cruiser a large aircraft carrier and an escort carrier, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced.

Heaviest Yet

An hour later, in a second war bulletin, Nimitz disclosed that the  heaviest carrier a s s a u l t s yet launched against the Japanese homeland were continuing into a second day with waves of planes taking off from the decks of gigantic American and British carrier at dawn.

 

19 JAP CITIES
'HALF-BURNED'

Vast Homeland Area;
Left In Ruins

 

GUAM, Wednesday, July 25. (U. P.)

—B-29 Superfortresses have destroyed 50 per cent of 19 Japanese cities, with Numazo, 80 miles southwest of Tokyo, leading the list, it was disclosed today.

Numazu. with a population of 55.000.was nearly 90 per cent destroyed in an attack July 17. It took first place from Gifu. 74 per cent destroyed

Photographs revealed that 1.2 square miles of Numazu's total area of 1.4 square miles was burned out.

Cities now more than 50 per cent destroyed are: Tokyo, Kobe, Hamamatsu, Yokkaichi, Toyohashi, Shizuoka, Okayama, Kure, Kochi, Tokushima, Takamatsu.Himeji, Kofu, Akashi, Shimizu. Gilu. Wakayama, Ichinomiya and Numazu.

70 Per Cent Wrecked

It was also disclosed that more derailed study of damage done to the great naval base of Kure by Superforts,that nearly 3,000,000 square feet of the city's prowling naval arsenal had been wrecked. That represents 70 per cent of the arsenal.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

July 24, 1945; JAPANES FLEET BOMBED AT ANCHOR:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 24, 1945:


 

RACINE, W I S . , TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 24, 1945

Record Horde
Of B-29s Hits
Industrial Areas

(See Story on Page 3.)

BY WILLIAM F. TYREE

GUAM—(UP)—More than 1,000 American planes pounced on a concentration of Japanese warships at the Kure Naval Base today and left it a holocaust of burning wreckage. Japanese ground gunners and fighter planes fought back desperately.

The invasion-marked Japanese homeland rocked under unprecedented aerial blows from some 2,000 American warplanes. They included a record armada of more than 600 Super-Fortresses, which loosed a torrent of bombs on Nagoya, Osaka and five Japanese war plants.

Fleet dispatches revealed that the carrier planes swarming all day over Kure scored direct hits with heavy bombs on two Japanise warships and set fire to a number of others.

Pounding Flotilla to Pieces, task force 38 of Adm. William F. Halsey's Third Fleet finally had found a big part of the surviving J a p a n e s e fleet—perhaps the major part — and was pounding it to pieces.

.

The a Fleet dispatches revealed that the carrier planes swarming all day over Kure scored direct hits with heavy bombs on two Japanese warships and set fire to a number of others.

.

The air force hoarded by the Japanese for t h e showdown battle of the homeland was s t u n g to action in the defense of K u r e and its warships.

Airmen returning to their carrier bases reported numerous dogfights swirling through the smoke clogged skies over Kure.

All day long the carrier force smashed at "military targets" at Kure. A fleet dispatch said it was common knowledge that the base was among J a p a n ' s greatest naval centers, and might shelter "much of" the enemy fleet. -

Caught Riding at Anchor.

"Many" J a p a n e s e warships were caught riding at anchor in Kure harbor on the Inland Sea, United Press War Correspondent Richard W. Johnston reported from the attacking fleet.

Tokyo admitted "slight" damage to warships at Kure , but claimed that 30 American planes were shot down or damaged.

Upwards of 1,000 c a r r i e r planes were on the attack over Kure and the chain of enemy airfields around the naval station, and it was indicated they had flushed out a huge concentration of Japanese

.

 

 

 

 

 

2 — R A C I N E J O U R N A L - T I M ES

T u e s d a y , July 24.1945

 

 

Japs Seize Offensive in Kiangsi,
Aim to Relieve Pressure on Kweilin

CHUNGKING—(U.P.) —

 

 

 

Chinese Make Chihchiang BaseToo Hot for Enemy to Hold

 
B y HARRY GRAYSON

C H I H C H I A N G , H u n a n P r o v i n c e,