MacArthur fliers aid Saipan fight
Liberators pound Yap, Truk and Palau to pin down Japanese planes on bases
Allied HQ, New Guinea, (AP) –
Maintaining their intense pressure against Japanese flank air bases which might menace the Saipan invasion, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s bombers smashed again at Yap Island, 650 miles southwest of the Marianas, and hit 14 other objectives in widespread raids, headquarters announced today.
Forty-five tons of bombs were rained on the Yap Airdrome during the assaults Friday which blanketed the major Japanese airfields between New Guinea and flaming Saipan. The bombers also lashed at Truk, Woleai and Palau in the Caroline Islands, and airstrips on New Guinea, Timor and New Britain.
Several parked planes were destroyed during the midday attack on Yap. Ten Japanese planes were intercepted, and one of the assaulting Liberators was missing. It was the second consecutive strike at Yap by land-based planes. The previous day, Liberators destroyed 12 and damaged 10 grounded Japanese aircraft.
A spokesman for Gen. MacArthur said the operations were designed to pin down planes that the Japanese might attempt to use for interfering with the Saipan battle.
A number of aircraft were also destroyed during a strike at Sorong, at the northwestern extremity of Dutch New Guinea, described as the last effective Japanese air base on that land mass. The communiqué added “there was no interception” when Liberators bombed Jefman Field. Fires and explosions were observed.
One U.S. plane was lost over New Britain.
Mitchell bombers again ranged far westward of New Guinea over the Banda Sea, damaging a 1,500-ton freight in the Watu Bela Islands. Bostons damaged a 1,000-ton ship and a coastal craft in MacCluer Gulf, in northwestern Dutch New Guinea.
Headquarters announced 345 Japanese were killed during mopping-up operations on U.S.-invaded Biak Island, off northern Dutch New Guinea, June 22 and 23. They are included in the total of 2,333 Japanese dead and captured, which a spokesman announced Sunday for the period between May 27 and June 23.