The Pittsburgh Press (April 26, 1945)
Southern Okinawa Jap line smashed
Yanks 3½ miles from capital city
GUAM (UP) – U.S. Army troops today had smashed the first major Jap defense line on southern Okinawa.
All key terrain on which the line was anchored was captured by the Americans as they pushed more than half a mile through the strong Jap defenses to less than three and a half miles from Naha, the island capital.
Superfortresses hit Japan
The developing Okinawa campaign brought a force of 200 to 250 Superfortresses ranging over Japan again today in new neutralization raids on airfields in Kyushu and Shikoku, two enemy home islands.
While the Japs staggered under the weight of the American land, naval and aerial blows, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced that 21,269 enemy troops were killed on Okinawa and the surrounding islands up to yesterday.
Most of the Japs were killed on Okinawa and it was estimated the enemy had lost one-third of its original garrison in the bloody fighting on the island, 325 miles from Japan. Only 399 Japs were taken prisoner.
U.S. casualties listed
American casualties in the campaign as of April 22, were: Army: 889 dead, 4,879 wounded and 289 missing; Marines: 257 dead, 1,103 wounded and seven missing.
Adm. Nimitz also disclosed that the town of Kakuzu, in the center of the island, had been retaken by Army troops in the renewed drive through the Jap defense belt stretched across Okinawa above Naha.
Thousands of Japs were killed and wounded in the coordinated naval and artillery bombardment. The big guns of Americans warships and the greatest artillery concentration of the Pacific War have been pounding the strongly dug-in Japs continuously since last Thursday.
The Americans were forced to burn and blast the Japs from pillboxes, blockhouses and caves with flamethrowers and explosive shells.
The new Superfortress attack on southern Japan was concentrated on 11 airfields spread through Kyushu and Shikoku. It was the first time the big American bombers hit Shikoku, just south of the main home island of Honshu.
Tokyo radio reported that Superfortresses raided Borneo for the first time Monday when two of the big bombers struck the oil center of Balikpapan.