Marines led by tanks renew attack against central Iwo airfield
Drive launched after artillery, warships, planes plaster Japanese positions
Closeness to heart of Jap homeland of the U.S. Pacific offensive since the invasion of Iwo is graphically shown by these maps.
GUAM (UP) – Tank-led U.S. Marines renewed the assault on Iwo’s central airfield from a springboard on its lower edge today and at noon were hammering out slow gains against violent resistance.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced that the Marines charged Jap positions on the Iwo airfield from a line on the southwestern rim of the base and south of its center.
With tank support the Marines struck this morning after U.S. planes, artillery and warships had plastered the field with a great weight of explosives.
“By noon our forces were reported to be gaining ground slowly,” Adm. Nimitz said in a communiqué. “Enemy resistance is heavy.”
On the southern tip of Iwo, patrols entered the crater of the extinct Suribachi volcano, atop which the Stars and Stripes flew, and were mopping-up remnants of the Jap forces defending the natural fortress.
“Conditions on the beaches are generally improved, and the unloading of general cargo is proceeding,” the communiqué reported.
A BBC broadcast quoted Radio Tokyo as saying that the Americans have established two new beachheads on the southeast coast of Iwo.
Casualties mount
Casualties mounted steadily on both sides in the bloodiest fighting of the Pacific war. While American losses have not been announced beyond 5,372 casualties for the first 58 hours of the six-day battle, the finding of another 717 Jap bodies jumped the number of enemy dead to at least 1,939.
A Jap broadcast claimed that American losses on Iwo were “well over 17,000” up to Friday night. Eight more U.S. warships, including two battleships, have been sunk or damaged off the island, Tokyo said.
Elements of the 3rd Marine Division fought onto the 300-foot-high central plateau yesterday and had advanced 50 yards along the southern tip of the southwest-northeast runway of Motoyama Airfield No. 2 by dusk.
Japs fire rockets
The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions were still attempting to clamber up the slopes of the plateau from the east and west under almost point-blank artillery, machine-gun and rocket fire from an intricate system of pillboxes, blockhouses and fortified caves.
The 5th Marine Division on the western slopes had made virtually no progress for 66 hours through noon Friday, but the 4th Marine Division on the east pushed ahead 300 yards to within 350 yards of the east-west runway of the central airfield.
Mop up at Suribachi
Some 2½ miles to the southwest, other Marine units were exterminating the Japs in bypassed caves and pillboxes on the slopes of captured Mt. Suribachi, an extinct 554-foot volcano.
Similar defenses have been reported inside the crater and must also be reduced. A total of 717 enemy dead have been counted in the Suribachi sector, Adm. Nimitz reported.
Tough as the present fighting has been, even more difficult tasks appeared to lie ahead before Iwo and its airfields 750 miles south of Tokyo are securely in American hands.
Has active volcano
Beyond the central airfield and an uncompleted northern airstrip lie flat-topped, dome-shaped, 360-foot Mt. Yama, an active volcano, and a cluster of satellite peaks.
This devil’s playground is honeycombed with long-prepared cave and tunnel defenses, while the peaks themselves are dotted with vents and fissures which emit steam and sulfurous fumes.
Navy pounds Japs
Carrier aircraft and the big guns of the Fifth Fleet continued to support the ground forces. A destroyer moved close in shore yesterday and knocked out an enemy mortar position on Kangoku Rock a mile northwest of Iwo. Several landing craft on the rock were also destroyed.
The northern perimeter of the American line ran from a point about halfway up the west coast inland 1,500 yards to a slight northern bulge, then diagonally southeast across the central airfield to the northern end of the invasion beach on the east coast.
Carrier aircraft made an offensive sweep over Chichi in the neighboring Bonin Islands yesterday.