The Pittsburgh Press (April 15, 1945)
Americans hold half of Okinawa
Marines push north – attack beaten off
GUAM (UP) – U.S. infantrymen on Southern Okinawa beat off another small Jap counterattack Saturday Marines in the north pushed ahead against negligible resistance to bring almost half of the important island under American control.
Army and Marine field artillery, naval gunfire and carrier and land-based aircraft plastered Jap positions along the southern Naha defense line as the 96th Infantry Division easily repulsed the small enemy attack.
Carrier planes in attacks
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz reported the carrier aircraft of the U.S. and British Pacific Fleet units struck again at the Sakishima Islands, southernmost of the Ryukyus, and at Formosa Saturday without opposition.
Almost all of the large Motobu Peninsula jutting out from Okinawa’s western coast is now controlled by Marines of the III Amphibious Corps.
Other Marines driving northward on Okinawa pushed to the vicinity of Momobaru Town on the west coast and Arakawa town on the east coast.
Momobaru is within 10 miles of the northern end of the island.
The American-controlled area now extends some 50 miles from north to south. The northern line is being extended northward daily against the slightest resistance, but 60,000 Jap troops massed in the southern sector of Okinawa have held the U.S. Army forces to a standstill for 10 days.
Pillboxes bar way
The three U.S. infantry divisions in Southern Okinawa were using demolition charges and flamethrowers as they battered against steel-armored Jap pillboxes barring the wav to Naha, capital city of the island.
Nine enemy planes were shot down off Okinawa during the day by combat air patrols, Adm. Nimitz said.
The U.S. carrier aircraft raiding the Sakishima area hit airfields on Ishigaki and Miyako Islands, destroying seven planes on the ground and damaging 25 others.
British carrier planes attacked Matsuyama and Shinchiku on Formosa without opposition. Many planes were damaged on the ground and hangars, barracks, buildings, a railway bridge, a tram and other targets were hit.