The Free Lance-Star (June 29, 1944)
Japs declare war at ‘serious stage’
New York (AP) –
The Tokyo radio told the Japanese people today that the U.S. thrust into Saipan Island in the Marianas, coupled with other U.S. offensive gestures over a wide area in the Pacific had brought the war to “a very serious stage.”
The broadcast, reported by the Office of War Information, said:
We, the 100,000,000 people of Japan, must realize now, if ever, that the outcome of the battle of the Marianas will exert a very serious influence upon the future war situation.
This is an offensive in which the enemy is prepared to make sacrifices, and even though there are times when there is no strategy whatever behind his actions as regards tactics, the seriousness lying deep in the heart of the enemy, the fierceness of the enemy’s fighting spirit, the enormous number of his ground troops, all are at their highest since the beginning of the war.