July 17, 1945; WAR ENTERS PRE-INVASION STAGE:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JULY 17, 1945:

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1945.

 

Air-Sea Beating Enters 2nd

Week, Pre-lnvasion Stage

By the Associated Press

Unprecedented swarms of carrier planes and blazing battleship, guns opened {he second , week of bombarding  of Japan from the sea and air Tuesday. Fifteen hundred American and British carrier planes swept over the Tokyo area for eight hours during the day. A daring task force aided by .the new. Battleship Iowa moved in close to shore, barely 80 miles from Tokyo, shortly before midnight (Japan time) and began shelling vital smelters and aircraft parts plants at Hitachi. The attack continued Into Wednesday (Tokyo time).

Simultaneously with the boldest naval-air attacks of the war, Admiral Nimitz announced that 374 Jap vessels and 129 locomotives were destroyed or damaged in a two-day carrier sweep over northern Japan last week-end.

HEAVIEST POUNDING

The same carrier planes returned to the attack Tuesday, Joining with British sea-borne air units and approximately 500 Superiorly to give the enemy's homeland perhaps its heaviest aerial pounding of the war. They were virtually unopposed as at every strike Halsey's forces have.

GUAM, 'July 17.—(AP)—Admiral Nlmltz today sent a message to the Third fleet and Task Force 38 saying: "Hearty congratulations on the damage Inflicted In north Honshu and Hokkaido..
made -In' a week 'of cruising also-on the Jap coast, line from Tokyo to Hokkaido Island and back again. - Hitachi and its war industries previously hit by Superforts, lie. 80 miles northeast of Tokyo and 200 miles south of Kamaishi, first Jap city to be shelled by U. S. warships. Hitachi was the third to feel the sting of 16-inch shells within four days.

 

Truman, Stalin Confer

Informally Before Parley

POTSDAM, July 17.—(AP) Premier Stalin conferred with President Truman, at the little White House today in company with their ranking foreign affairs officials a few hours before the world-shaping Big Three conference was scheduled to start.

The generalissimo, attired as a marshal of the Soviet union, was accompanied by Foreign Commlsar Molotov. They were guests at luncheon given by the president and Secretary of State Byrnes. The party -talked for an hour.

The atmosphere of secrecy surrounding the delayed start o[ the conference with Prime Minister. Churchill was heightened during the murky, cloudy morning by three mysterious explosions in the Russian

Bone of Berlin.

The two Soviet leaders arrived In Potsdam two days ago, it was disclosed. There was no explanation, however, why the opening of the conference had been delayed yesterday.

Churchill ate luncheon with Secretary of War Stimson after entertaining General Marshall, chief of staff of the U. S. army, at dinner last night, Stimson's views on-the

Pacific war were understood to have been given to Churchill.

Stimson arrived after touring the wrecked center of Berlin, remarking of the sight: "I feel as though I have done a distasteful duty."

INTERPRETER ALONG.

The Russians appeared at Mr. Truman's residence at 11:50 a. m with their official interpreter, V. N Pavlov, and were greeted by the president's military and naval aide and then by Mr. Truman and his  secretary of state.

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