Radio insanity
Truth or Consequences tortures contestants
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The Pittsburgh Press (April 2, 1945)
BRITISH PERIL ROCKET BASES
150,000 Nazis trapped in Ruhr
Monty’s tanks smash past Muenster – Patton 152 miles from Berlin
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Yanks splitting Okinawa
Jap resistance flares on southern flank as invaders near capital
Ashore on a key Jap base, U.S. soldiers and Marines were closing on Naha, the capital of Okinawa Island. U.S. forces seized a beachhead 8¾ miles long on the west coast of the island and drove halfway to the eastern shore. The Americans landed between Zampa Cape and Chatan and drove through the latter town toward Naha. British warships supported the American operation by bombing the Sakishima Islands to the southwest.
GUAM (UP) – U.S. invasion troops smashed forward more than halfway across Okinawa today in a swift advance against scattered Jap sniper and pillbox resistance.
Front dispatches said an announcement that Okinawa had been split in two was expected hourly.
Hard fighting flared on the southern flank of the U.S. Army-Marine front where tank-led infantrymen were driving toward Naha, the island’s burning capital, less than seven miles distant.
Tokyo radio reported without Allied confirmation that Americans completed a new landing today on Kume, 52 miles west of Okinawa and 340 miles northwest of Formosa.
Tens of thousands of troops of the new U.S. Tenth Army smashed ashore along a wide beachhead. Two airfields and more than a dozen villages were captured. Dispatches indicated U.S. planes soon would be using at least one of the two captured airdromes.
United Press writer E. G. Valens, accompanying forward elements of two Army units driving across Okinawa from the captured Kadena Airfield, said resistance continued to be comparatively light. This column was heading downhill toward Noza and the Nagusuku Bay naval anchorage on the east side of the island.
The hardest fighting raged in the “badlands” north of Naha, the prime objective of this invasion only 362 miles south of Japan.
Roads heavily mined
There, the troops under Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner collided with Jap-prepared positions and machine-gun nests. Roads were heavily mined. But when the mines were neutralized, soldiers moved in on bulldozers to widen the roads.
Carrier planes from the invasion armada lying offshore pinpointed enemy targets ahead of advancing troops.
Mr. Valens said one dauntless dive bomber made an emergency landing on Kadena airstrip. It was the first large American plane to land there.
Wrecked planes everywhere
At Kadena, the attackers found gun emplacements were little more than wooden pigsties. The wreckage of Jap planes lay scattered across the captured airfields, indicating the effectiveness of the pre-invasion bombardment and carrier strikes.
Norman Paige, Blue Network correspondent, reported from Okinawa that Jap civilians here begun surrendering “in droves.” “They seemed glad to give themselves up,” Mr. Paige said.
Mr. Paige said the “general impression” on Okinawa was that the main Jap garrison had moved to Formosa, was hiding in the hills or underground, or had been fooled into believing the landing would occur at the southern tip of Okinawa instead of the south-central west coast.
Capital’s towers in sight
Radio towers of Naha, a city of 165,000, were clearly visible to advancing U.S. troops.
The Yanks were already days ahead of schedule on their greatest invasion of the Pacific war.
Reinforcements of men, tanks, guns and supplies were flowing across the beaches in a steady stream.
Warships ranging from new 45,000-ton battleships to rocket-firing gunboats poured a steady drumfire of shells into enemy positions ahead of the ground forces. Some 1,500 carrier planes also shuttled back and forth over the island.
A Jap communiqué conceded that the Americans were continuing to reinforce the beachhead, but claimed that Jap forces had intercepted the invaders in “furious fighting.”
Melbourne radio reported that Australian monitors heard a Jap broadcast asserting that Allied invasion forces also landed on Kume Island, 52 miles west of Naha. Kume is the westernmost of the Ryukyu Island chain.
The enemy communiqué also asserted that 41 more ships in the invasion armada had been sunk or damaged.
Close on Japan
The landing on Okinawa brought U.S. forces nearly twice as close to Japan proper as they are on Iwo, 750 miles south of Tokyo. The northern tip of 65-mile-long Okinawa lies only 330 miles southwest of Kyushu, southernmost of the Jap home islands.
Capture of the island would give the Americans strategic air, land and sea bases from which to mount an eventual invasion of Japan proper or the China coast, only 400 miles to the west.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific feet, hailed the invasion as assuring “our final decisive victory.”
Severing life line
Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, commander of the invasion fleet, said capture of Okinawa would sever Japan’s lifeline to her southern empire and make it impossible for her fleet to operate or base in Southern Japan. Traffic on the Yangtze River, lifeline of the Jap Army in China, also would be shut off. he said.
The main landing on Okinawa was preceded by landings beginning last Monday on the Kerama Islands 10 to 20 miles west of Okinawa.
Maj. Gen. Andrew D. Bruce’s 77th Infantry Division quickly seized all eight islands in the group and set up heavy artillery to support the Okinawa invasion. A seaplane and harbor base was established at one island.
10-day bombardment
An unprecedented 10-day air and sea bombardment, during which warships alone hurtled 5,000 tons of steel and explosives into the Jap defenses, paved the way for the landing on Okinawa by the Tenth Army under Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., former commander in Alaska.
Front dispatches said Maj. Gen. John R. Hodge’s XXIV Army Corps, veterans of Leyte, landed at the southern end of the beachhead against little more than occasional sniper fire.
Meet light opposition
The first regiment ashore swept a mile south across rice paddies and grain fields to the burning farm village of Kue, then swarmed down onto the flat, rolling shoreline leading south to Naha.
Command post radios reported battalion troops along the shore before dusk last night had driven through Chatan, eight miles north of Naha, against light opposition, including some mortar and rifle fire.
Other Army troops, spearheaded by amphibious tanks, struck inland and seized the Kadena Airfield, then fanned out against still bafflingly-light resistance. The Japs blew up few bridges, but others were captured intact by the Army troops.
Capture height
Another Army column captured a strategic height at Nozato, northernmost point of a hill mass dominating the southern sector of the assault area.
Late reports from the Army front said heavy American equipment was rolling inland over narrow roads six to eight feet wide and through sandy fields. Many troops walked boldly upright through rolling fields of sugarcane, sweet potatoes and grain.
Even lighter resistance, if possible, was met by Maj. Gen. Roy S. Geiger’s III Marine Amphibious Corps, conquerors of Guam, at the northern end of the beachhead.
Not a single Marine was killed or wounded in the first half hour of the invasion and, 8½ hours later, most Marines were yet to see a Jap soldier. U.S. casualties were described as “incredibly light.”
Take airfield quickly
The Marines went ashore at and south of Zampa Cape, some 16 miles north of Naha and westernmost point of the island, and in the first hour captured Yontan Airfield.
Gen. Geiger, veteran of many other Pacific campaigns, expressed amazement at the lack of resistance met by his forces.
“I’m damned if I’ve ever been on a battlefield hike this,” he said. “They’re sunk now.”
Big Jap force on island
The Japs were known to have 60,000 to 80,000 troops on Okinawa and their failure to oppose the landing was even more surprising in view of the fight to the death put up by the enemy garrison at Iwo.
Okinawa is also the most heavily populated Jap island yet invaded by the Americans. Its 435,000 inhabitants comprise nearly half the entire population of the Ryukyu Island chain, stretching from Japan to Formosa.
At the end of the first day, Gen. Buckner said he was “elated” with the progress of the campaign.
“We are locking down the Mikado’s throat.” he said.
Adm. Turner, on his flagship, was more conservative. He was “satisfied.”
Eleven to 13 Jap planes attempted to attack the invasion armada during the landing operations, but all were destroyed.
A British task force supported the invasion with a carrier-based air assault on Ishigaki and Miyako Islands in the Sakishima group southwest of Okinawa Saturday and Sunday. Of 20 Jap planes which landed in the Sakishimas during the attacks, 14 were destroyed and six damaged by the British aircraft.
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200 Japs commit suicide as Yanks invade Keramas
Survivors on island near Okinawa say they were told Americans would torture them
By E. G. Valens, United Press staff writer
WITH 77TH INFANTRY DIVISION, in the Ryukyus (April 1, delayed) – Fear implanted by their own authorities caused an estimated 200 Jap civilians to attempt mass suicide on Tokashiki Island in the Keramas.
Some disemboweled themselves with grenades, others hanged themselves from trees. A number of them were still living when the Yanks reached the scene, but a Jap machine-gunner cut down the first litter-bearers, He was eliminated quickly, however.
The mass suicide, the first recorded since Saipan, was discovered when one battalion prepared to bivouac for the night about three miles north of Tokashiki town. Horrible cries of pain came from a small valley almost a mile away. When the troops investigated, they found the civilians scattered about, some dead, some dying.
White flag hauled down
Cpl. Alexander Roberts, Army photographer of New York City, was one of the first to arrive. He estimated the number of Japs at more than 200.
A white surrender flag flashed momentarily from amid the group, but it was hauled down before soldiers or doctors could reach it.
First aid was given immediately to those who could be saved. Morphine was given to the others to ease their pain.
The survivors told officers that their officials said if the Americans came all the women would be tortured and the men killed.
With these fears in mind, many fathers strangled their families and then took their own lives by pressing grenades against their stomachs or by leaning into the noose of a rope tied to a tree. One old man wept when he saw how the Americans treated the women. Only a short time ago he had strangled his daughter who was wounded in the pre-invasion bombing.
The invasion of the Keramas last Monday was one of the oddest in amphibious warfare. Each of the eight islands was invaded in an independent operation under the direct control of only a captain, major or lieutenant colonel.
Seize suicide fleet
It was a lightning small-scale stepping-stone operation right under the Jap noses on Okinawa with enemy air bases in every direction – north, south, east and west.
But now all the eight islands guarding the Okinawa landing beaches, less than 20 miles away, are secure and a major portion of a secret Jap suicide boat fleet is at the bottom of the Pacific.
The Yanks seized or destroyed 290 of these 16-foot boats, which might have seriously hampered the Okinawa operation. They were discovered in caves along the shores of four of the Kerama Islands.
Special Japanese currency carried by Okinawa Yanks
U.S. troops for first time invade area heavily populated by enemy civilians
By Mac R. Johnson, United Press staff writer
ABOARD INVASION FLAGSHIP, off Okinawa (April 1, delayed) – U.S. troops set several precedents in the invasion of Okinawa today.
For the first time in the Pacific war, they carried yen – Japanese currency – and hit an area heavily populated by Jap civilians.
Before they went ashore the troops were required to exchange their U.S. dollars for yen at a rate of 10 yen to the dollar.
The invasion yen, especially designed to differentiate from the Jap yen, was declared legal tender on proclamation and the Yanks were not permitted to take any greenbacks ashore. No metal coins will be honored in the Ryukyus.
435,000 Japs on island
The invasion of Okinawa may be a guide to what is in store as the Americans move closer to Japan. the island has a population of 435,000 Japs – more than half of the entire Ryukyus – although they are different in many ways from the Japs in the homeland.
They look like Japs, but are a little shorter, stockier and dark, often with coarser features. Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of the U.S. Tenth Army, describes them as the “scrubby type of Jap – if there’s anything scrubbier than a Jap.”
The Okinawans consider themselves closer to China and Chinese culture than to Japan, and the Japs consider them an inferior people.
Some several hundred of the Ryukyuans already have returned to their homes on Zamami, in the Keramas, and the Americans are following a policy of “leave ‘em alone as long as they behave.”
Naha largest town
The civilian problem on the conquered islands is being handled by a large Military Government organization under the Tenth Army civil affairs officer, Brig. Gen. William E. Crist of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
On Okinawa, most of the population is concentrated in the southern third of the island, where the largest town, Naha, with more than 65,000 persons, is located.
The rest of the island, which like the nearby islands is very unhealthy, is very mountainous and of little value. Malaria is common in this section and the water supply usually is contaminated.
There are many insects and the jungles are infested by five species of deadly snakes of the pit viper variety.
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Air blockade of Japan sealed
Okinawa assaults cost Japs 1,052 planes
By Lloyd Tupling, United Press staff writer
ABOARD ADM. MITSCHER’S FLAGSHIP OFF OKINAWA – The invasion of Okinawa, viewed as the last step in completing an air blockade of Japan, was the crowning blow of an almost continuous assault which started March 17 and has cost the enemy 1,052 planes destroyed or damaged.
The strategic importance of the island was emphasized today by high-ranking officers who pointed out that only the North Japan Sea which leads to Manchuria and Siberia will be out of striking range of U.S. bombers based on Okinawa.
Strikes at fleet first
Operations against Okinawa started March 17 with strikes against the Imperial Jap Fleet hiding in the Inland Sea. Since that time, Vice Adm. Marc A. Mitscher’s carrier planes have flown more than 8,000 sorties, bagged 1,052 Jap planes, knocked out 20 enemy warships and sank or damaged 200 other vessels, mostly small coastal craft.
The air attack was climaxed yesterday when wave after wave of fighter planes swept Okinawa’s beaches with a curtain of hot lead in front of Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner’s Tenth Army troops.
Most of the past two weeks have been spent bombing, rocketing and strafing gun positions, underground hangars, submarine pens and scores of small craft which could have opposed the invasion troops.
Astride supply route
Establishment of air bases on Okinawa will make even more desperate the Jap supply problem which became acute when U.S. planes from Philippines bases closed off the South China Sea. With our air force sitting astride the East China Sea at Okinawa and the Western Pacific at Iwo Jima, Japan’s problem of supply will be doubly difficult.
Air operations from Okinawa will put a double squeeze on the enemy war effort, keeping the remnants of Hirohito’s fleet bottled up in sheltered home waters and making it difficult to haul supplies to troops in northern China or bring in raw materials to the homeland.
Operations to pin down shipping in Japan’s home waters actually started several days before the invasion of Okinawa when U.S. search planes started operating out of Kerama Retto, 15 miles west of Okinawa. Kerama Retto was occupied six days ago.
Japs say Okinawa will decide war
Warn entire strategy depends on island
By the United Press
The Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Hochi, in a remarkably frank editorial on the significance of the Okinawa invasion, warned the Jap people today that the loss of that key bastion will mean that “there can be no hope of turning the course of the war.”
The editorial, as quoted by Tokyo radio, said the “entire strategy of the Pacific” was based on the battle of Okinawa.
“The loss of Okinawa will mean the collapse of the vanguards of Japan proper,” the newspaper said.
Two other Tokyo dailies maintained the usual Jap propaganda line. The Asahi Shimbun, according to the broadcast, asserted the invasion “does not mean the war situation is turning in their [Allied] favor,” adding that at the “decisive moment everything should be thrown into the encounter.”
The Mainichi Shimbun said that “if we succeed in destroying the enemy, we will be able to turn to the offensive.”
Okinawa called Easter gift – landing like rehearsal
Gunboats touch off swooshing barrages of rockets in support of new Pacific invasion
By William McGaffin
WITH THE U.S. TENTH ARMY ON OKINAWA (April 1, delayed) – A mighty new army of Marines and soldiers went to church ion their transports 13 hours earlier than folks on Fifth Avenue this beautiful Easter Sunday. Then they walked ashore on Okinawa Island in an almost unopposed landing.
It was virtually a bloodless beachhead they established on this strategically vital island. Not since Kiska have we had such an easy time.
I watched the landing through glasses from the bridge of an amphibious flagship. This afternoon I followed the troops ashore and walked over the major part of the Marine beachhead with gray-haired Maj. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, commanding general of the Marine III Amphibious Corps troops, who comprise half of the Tenth Army.
Asks about casualties
At every command post we visited on this picturesque pine tree-clad island, the 60-year-old general inquired about casualties and everywhere the answer was a fantastically low figure. There were, for example, only 10 wounded and one killed in one Marine regiment up to two this afternoon, according to Lt. Col. Fred Beans of Cleburne, Texas, who is the executive officer of the regiment.
“I’ve seen only six dead Japs,” the colonel added.
Casualties were described as “exceedingly light,” too, with the XXIV Army Corps making up the rest of the Tenth Army.
Some called it an Easter present, other dubbed it “April Fool.” The general commented: “Doggone. I never, never have been on a battlefield like this before. It’s just a rehearsal. only more fun.”
1,500 planes attack
This is officially credited with being the “largest amphibious operation of the war in the Pacific to date.” More than 1,400 ships are involved and 1,500 carrier-based planes are providing close support.
It was exhilarating to watch the battleships slamming away at point blank range in the grand climax to a solid week of preparatory naval bombardment, to see the gunboats touch off swooshing barrages of rockets, to see flight after flight of planes thunder in to bomb and strafe and rocket.
After this, landing-boats paraded by with flags flying and started toward shore with their precious human cargoes. Half a mile from shore they surmounted a nasty reef and kept on going. At 0846 (8:46 a.m.) they hit the beach.
A clean beach
No landing craft were lost to enemy action on the half of the beach I visited ana no mines were found. It was a clean beach with no bodies, no damaged equipment, no crowded first-aid stations.
It was such a strange looking beachhead it didn’t seem as though we could be landing on hostile territory.
One Marine said: “It looks just like Jones Beach (on Long Island) on a Sunday afternoon.”
We control the sea and air. There is no sight of enemy fleet. Our planes have had a field day over the target, with no ack-ack opposing them. The weather, which worried us on our way here, was perfect today – cool, with a bright sun and a smooth sea.
Troops walk upright
The troops walked upright after they landed and made excellent progress. They captured two airfields before the end of the morning.
It is believed that there were anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 enemy troops here. If that is true, we cannot understand why they didn’t oppose our landing more vigorously. The only living things we encountered were civilians. They were friendly and bowed low to the Marines who then led them to reception camps.
The general expressed himself as mystified by the Jap conduct. It is quite possible that there will be some bloody struggles yet. But we got artillery and tanks ashore today. And by letting us take two airfields the Japs simply gave us Okinawa.
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Familiar picture –
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Small assault craft lost in Philippines
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Navy today announced the loss of a small assault boat in the Philippines as the result of enemy action.
The LCI (G) 974 carried a normal complement of 30 men. The Navy said next of kin of casualties have been notified.
The vessel was 157 feet long and displaced 393 tons.