Gains are scored on Saipan Island
Assaults on Japanese mainland declared pending
USPACFLT HQ, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (AP) –
While U.S. warships and planes attacked half a dozen Japanese bases along a 3,300-mile ocean-spanning arc, U.S. forces on Saipan Island scored gains of up to two miles, headquarters announced.
From Washington came the promise of impending blows at Japan itself. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal said at a press conference:
The final occupation of Saipan will enable us to protect surface and air operations that will include the mainland of Japan, the Philippines and a greater part of the Dutch East Indies.
One Pacific fleet task force ventured amongst the Kuril Islands to shell Kurabu Zaki, main air base on southern Paramushiru.
Another gave Tinian Island, next door to Saipan in the Marianas, its daily working-over.
Carrier planes swept Guam and Rota, south of Tinian. Land-based Army bombers struck at Paramushiru and Shumushu in the Kurils, and at Yap and Truk, in the distant Carolines.
Japanese hurled torpedo planes and bombers against Allied carriers and transports near the Marianas. The attacks were unsuccessful.
U.S. Marines and infantrymen, already possessing the southern half of Saipan, occupied two villages in a two-mile push up the east coast. On the west coast, they blasted the Japanese street by street, block by block, from Garapan, Saipan’s largest town.