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Forrestal: Iwo battle points to long Jap war
Enemy force totals five million men
WASHINGTON (UP) – Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal, just back from a three-week tour of the Pacific, has dimmed any budding hopes of an early end to the war with Japan.
He told a press conference late yesterday that the battle on Iwo Island demonstrated clearly the stiffening resistance that the Japs will put up as the war nears their homeland. Up to last Saturday, he said, American dead on Iwo numbered 2,050 Marines – more than twice the number killed on Tarawa.
Despite “severe and costly casualties,” Mr. Forrestal said, overall results of the battle have been highly successful. And once the island is conquered, the United States can send fighter-escorted bomber fleets over the Jap homeland.
The lean, 53-year-old Navy Secretary drove home these facts about Japan:
That despite the enemy’s heavy losses, he still has an estimated five million men under arms in his far-flung conquests, while the Americans have never had more than 12 divisions – about 180,000 men – in action at any one time.
That “the task still ahead of us is obviously immense.”
That Allied forces must be prepared to deal with the Japanese “in whatever theater the final death struggle of Japanese militarism occurs.”
“Japan is still a formidable and fanatical foe,” Mr. Forrestal concluded.
116,875 words sent from Iwo
ABOARD ADM. TURNER’S FLAGSHIP OFF IWO ISLAND (UP) – Correspondents covering the Iwo Island operation have been given the best press and radio transmission facilities of any amphibious campaign in the Central Pacific.
From the day of landing February 18 through March 1, the flagship communications office transmitted 116,875 words from wire service and special correspondents, exclusive of stories broadcast from the flagship by pool network correspondents.
United Press writers filed 154,092 words of this total.
Three censors worked aboard the flagship and stories were expedited to the United States via Guam and Honolulu.
Capt. Charles F. Horne of New York City, communications officer for Vice Adm. Richmond Kelley Turner, was credited with providing the excellent facilities.