CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Women in industry need ‘efficiency’ clothing
By Maxine Garrison
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U.S. War Department (April 18, 1942)
Communiqué No. 196
Philippine Theater.
Three enemy batteries, firing on our forts from Cavite and Bataan, were silenced by our artillery fire during the past 24 hours.
Corregidor and Caballo Islands were raided five times by enemy bombers, flying in formations of 2-8 planes. One Japanese bomber was hit by our anti-aircraft fire and damaged to such an extent that it is believed to have crashed, though its destruction was not confirmed.
Fierce fighting is reported from Panay, where the enemy landed at Iloilo and Capiz.
There is nothing to report from other areas.
Communiqué No. 197
Philippine Theater.
Aerial bombardment and shelling of Corregidor by enemy batteries continued throughout April 17, though with somewhat decreased intensity. Little damage was done.
Guns from our forts silenced several enemy batteries and blasted roads and bridges in Bataan, disrupting communications.
Reported from Cebu indicate that Cebu City is in enemy hands. The city is reported to be burning. Fierce fighting is continuing in that vicinity.
Hostile forces which landed on the island of Panay are being vigorously opposed by our troops.
There is nothing to report from other areas.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 18, 1942)
U.S. FLIERS BOMBARD TOKYO
Other cities raided, flames rage
Enemy alone tells of attack, claims 9 planes down
By the United Press
Japan raided first time, Tokyo says
Tokyo and three other large cities on the main island of Japan were air-raided, official Japanese reports said today as U.S. Flying Fortresses showered bombs on the Jap base at Rangoon, Burma. Action in the area shown above included:
1. U.S. Flying Fortresses blast Rangoon docks in second raid on this base.
2. Raiders attacking Japan believed to have used Chinese coast bases.
3. Bombers cities indicated by Xs; fires started at Nagoya and Kobe.
Japan announced today that Allied planes, taking the war to Japan for the first time, had bombed Tokyo, the world’s third largest city, and the industrial and naval base cities of Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya.
Radio Tokyo, in a Chinese-language broadcast recorded by CBS in San Francisco, identified the planes as American. The radio said:
American airplanes raided Tokyo for the first time.
Washington failed to confirm or deny the report.
After hours in which it asserted first that no damage had been done and then that damage was slight, Tokyo admitted that incendiary bombs had caused fires at Nagoya and Kobe, two of Japan’s greatest cities.
It was said that the Allied planes machine-gunned villages in the attack area.
The attacks extended over a 275-mile area of the south coast of Honshu, the main Japanese island, along which all Japan’s greatest cities are strung.
Tokyo had an air-raid alarm period extending from shortly before noon to around 4 p.m. Berlin said the raid began at 11:30 last night (ET).
The alarm was sounded throughout the Japanese island group from Hokkaidō in the far north to Tōhoku and Kyūshū in the southwest.
Admission that the Allied planes had used incendiary bombs meant that Japan for the first time had been brought face to face with its deadliest peril – mass fires among the flimsily-built homes of wood and paper which form large parts of her cities.
Central Defense Headquarters at Tokyo said fires at Nagoya and Kobe had been brought under control.
It said incendiary bombs had been dropped at six planes “in the vicinity of” Nagoya and that three places at Kobe were hit with firebombs.
Japan and all the world had known long before the war that every city in it was vulnerable to firebomb attacks and that after the first enemy planes had flown over the country its people would never, so long as the war lasted, sleep another night feeling secure.
Tokyo asserted that nine Allied planes had been shot down by interceptor planes in the vicinity of crowded, fire-fearful Tokyo with its 7 million people.
Broadcasts which spoke of thousands strolling the streets when the air-raid alarm sounded, just before Allied planes began flying over Tokyo from all directions, indicated that the city was caught completely unaware.
Tokyo said that noonday rush crowds kept on their way as did streetcars and buses, thinking that it was a practice alarm.
Emphasizing Japan’s constant fear for the safety of its Emperor Hirohito, whom it believes to be a more than human descendant of the Goddess of the Sun, Tokyo went out of its way to announced that the Imperial family was “well.”
There had been no report of an indisposition to any member of it.
Tokyo in its first reports of the raid said that heavy damage was done to homes, schools, hospitals and cultural institutions. It sought later to minimize the damage and said that homes, a school and a hospital were hit.
Berlin reported that Tokyo had had a seven-hour air-raid alert.
There were no details of damage to Yokohama, the great port and naval base 20 miles from the capital on Tokyo Bay.
Tokyo said that two raided Nagoya, Japan’s third city, on Owari Bay 235 miles from Tokyo on the south coast of Honshu, the main island, with a population of more than 900,000.
Kobe, a city of some 800,000 on the south coast, 10 miles north of the great industrial city of Osaka, was raided by a single plane – according to Tokyo. An important shipbuilding and industrial city, it has gained much importance since the 1923 earthquake.
After the first statement that there had been no damage at Kobe and Nagoya, the Tokyo radio broadcast the following communiqué, recorded in New York:
Osaka–Central Defense HQ announced at 3 p.m. (2 a.m. ET):
Three enemy planes raided Nagoya and Kobe. Only slight damage was caused.At 2:30 p.m., two enemy planes raided Nagoya. Although they dropped bombs damage was slight.
One enemy aircraft raided Kobe around 2:30, dropping incendiary bombs, but no serious damage was caused.
Apparently mystified as to the attack base of the planes, Tokyo at once began fishing for clues.
It first reported that six American aviators of the aircraft carrier Yorktown were prisoners in Japan, but this was a misfire because it was known these fliers were captured many weeks ago in a Navy raid on the Marshall Islands.
Next Tokyo circulated “an unconfirmed rumor” that a U.S. aircraft carrier had been sunk today off the Japanese east coast.
Washington did not bite.
The War Department in Washington said it had no confirmation that there had been an air attack on Tokyo. The Navy Department said it had received no official information. Likewise, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific headquarters in Australia said it had no confirmation.
But a Tokyo broadcast recorded in San Francisco said:
Allied warplanes attacked metropolitan Tokyo shortly afternoon today [Saturday] and dropped bombs on homes, a school and a hospital, inflicting slight damage. It was the first enemy air raid on Tokyo since the outbreak of war in the Pacific.
Military authorities at Eastern Headquarters said that Japanese pursuit planes shot down nine of the attacking planes.
The enemy aircraft did not appear over the heart of the city, and they did not damage military targets.
An air-raid warning sounded and traffic in the streets was clear immediately. Every person took his appointed station.
A Berlin dispatch said Allied planes, coming from different directions, entered Japanese territory at 12:30 p.m. Saturday (11:30 p.m. Friday ET) but were repulsed at once by fighter planes and ground defenses and that only small damage was done.
The Tokyo announcement came as the war ended its 19th week. It meant that 132 days after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan proper had got its first taste of war.
Tokyo interrupted a routine program “to give you this flash” in the first official statement of the raid, which said:
Enemy bombers appeared over Tokyo for the first time since the outbreak of the current war of Greater East Asia.
The bombing inflicted telling damages on schools and hospitals.
The raid occurred several minutes past noon on Saturday.
The invading planes failed to cause any damage to military establishments.
Casualties in the schools and hospitals are not yet known.
The inhuman attack on these cultural establishments and the residential districts is causing widespread indignation among the populace.
It was noted that a little while before broadcasting the announcement of the raid Tokyo had broadcast that fire had destroyed more than 400 houses in the village of Oguni in northern Japan and that it was feared casualties would prove high. Tokyo is in south-central Japan.
The raid increased mystery over a Tokyo broadcast Thursday night, which denied reports, alleged to have been put out by a British news agency, that three Allied planes had bombed Tokyo. This seemed to suggest that today’s raid might have been the second – not the first, as the Japs said – on Tokyo.
Mystery also attached to the base the Allied planes used, unless they put off from aircraft carriers.
The nearest point on the Chinese coast, above Shanghai, is nearly 1,100 miles from Tokyo and that area is occupied by the Japs.
There are U.S. Flying Fortresses in Australia, far out of range and in India overland from China.
Brig. Gen. Ralph Royce, who led the bold flight of U.S. Army Air Force heavy bombers in an attack on the Philippines last weekend, said on his return to Australia that Burma was the vital spot from which to attack the Japs. He said that if the Allied nations could get sufficient heavy bombers in Burma they could strike across China and cut Japan’s southward communications from the Philippines, and could be used, with refueling bases in China, for raids on Japan.
Tokyo’s announcement at once brought vividly to mind the award on April 12 in Honolulu of the distinguished flying Cross to four officers and five enlisted men who carried out “a hazardous and important mission over enemy territory” and displayed:
…heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight.
This achievement was to fly to the great plane’s extreme range and take complete photographs of an “enemy base.”
Announcements of U.S. naval and air attacks on Japanese or Jap-held areas customarily have been delayed considerably, sometimes for weeks.
This is a matter of military necessity to some degree at least because attacking naval formations would use their radios as little as possible while in enemy areas.
Tokyo was broadcasting a musical program, aimed at foreign countries, when it interrupted with the first statement on today’s announcement. The announcer spoke in English. The music was resumed; hen the same statement was broadcast in Japanese.
As heard in San Francisco, the Jap-language statement said:
…A number of bombs were dropped. The enemy planes did not attempt to hit military establishments and only inflicted damage on grammar schools, hospitals and cultural establishments. These planes were repulsed by a heavy barrage from our defense guns, the previous training of the Tokyo population for air-raid defense was put into immediate practice.
About 90 minutes later, Japanese Eastern Army Headquarters gave out its statement, saying the damage was slight and asserting that nine raiding planes had been destroyed.
This statement was amplified to say that the planes failed to appear over the center of Tokyo, but “batted about, releasing a few bombs on the outskirts of the city.”
It said Jap interceptor planes at once took chase and:
The hostile planes were seen winging at high speed but were made easy prey for the Japanese pursuit planes.
Tokyo said:
Ironically enough, the bombs dropped struck several homes, while other reports indicate that a school and hospital were hit.
Military authorities disclosed that no military establishments were made targets.
The damage was later confirmed to be slight as mounting indignation over the indiscriminate bombing as being felt among the people.
The people represented as “indignant” had read in their own newspapers of barbarous Jap air raids on such undefended cities as Manila, and called them inspiring victories.
On Thursday night, Tokyo broadcast:
A British dispatch that three American planes bombed Tokyo was the center of a joke among Japanese… The Chinese government has been spreading the most laughable false propaganda that the Japanese capital was bombed. The people of Tokyo pleasantly enjoy the quiet, peaceful and delightful spring days, observing the beautiful cherry blossoms. Now the residents of Tokyo are celebrating our glorious victories under very bright lights.
Rangoon hit hard again by U.S. bombers
Explosives showered on docks and harbors of big Jap base
By John R. Morris, United Press staff writer
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Bill Holden in Army
Hollywood, California –
Actor William Holden, 24, enters the Army today as a private in the Signal Corps. He is the husband of actress Brenda Marshall.
Last full measure of devotion –
Starving Bataan defenders fought on willpower only
Surrender of heroic, malaria-infested army hastened when quinine gives out – stewed monkey on menu
By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer
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U.S. watches Laval moves
Relations near rupture in envoy Leahy’s recall
By H. O. Thompson, United Press staff writer
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Public anger credited for draft leaves
Army hopes men will be spared inconvenience under new policy
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington corespondent
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