The Pittsburgh Press (February 1, 1944)
MARSHALL INVASION ADMITTED; OPPOSITION STRONG, NAVY SAYS
Army and sea forces seize beachhead on Kwajalein Atoll in mid-Pacific
Bulletin
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (UP) –
U.S. Army and Navy assault forces have landed in the Marshall Islands, it was announced officially today.Strong opposition is being encountered.
A powerful naval force consisting of all types of vessels is supporting the invasion, the object of which is to seize the Marshall Islands.
The U.S. forces are commanded by VAdm. R. A. Spruance.
The Americans landed on Roi in the Kwajalein Atoll. An initial beachhead was established on an island in the vicinity of Roi.
Ships, planes pound enemy
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
Powerful U.S. sea and air forces appeared today to have launched an all-out assault to neutralize and perhaps seize Japan’s Marshall Island strongholds, but Pacific Fleet headquarters remained silent on enemy hints that an invasion had already begun.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, was expected to issue a communiqué momentarily detailing the progress of the assault, which reached its climax with the arrival in the Marshalls of a huge task force including aircraft carriers and possibly battleships Saturday.
Blast Wake
Announcements yesterday disclosed that land-based Army and Navy bombers coordinated eight separate raids on the principal enemy bases in the Marshalls Saturday night with the naval armada’s weekend attacks, while other Navy planes reached 600 miles to the north for a heavy aerial bombardment of Jap-occupied Wake Island.
There was no further official word of the naval task force, one of the largest ever sent out of Pearl Harbor, despite Tokyo broadcasts claiming that it had been engaged in a fierce battle by Jap units.
Landing indicated
Tokyo also said Jap Army troops were participating in the fighting, raising the possibility that a landing had been attempted on one of the bomb and shell-battered atolls in the Marshalls.
Radio Vichy broadcast a second-hand report from Tokyo that U.S. shock troops had landed in the Marshalls, but gave no details.
A Tokyo domestic broadcast heard by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service last night said “a superior” enemy force had been raiding the Marshalls since Sunday morning, adding that details of the fighting were “not known to us at this time.” The broadcast reported that the Americans had undertaken a “new offensive operation.”
Hit small craft
Mitchell medium bombers from the U.S. 7th Air Force hit shore installations and small craft at Maloelap and Wotje Atolls in the first of the new land-based attacks on the Marshall group Saturday evening, while Dauntless dive bombers and Warhawk fighters blasted Imieji Island, Jaluit Atoll. No enemy fighters were encountered and anti-aircraft fire was ineffectual.
That night, Army Liberators dropped 45 tons of bombs on Kwajalein Atoll and nearly 10 tons on Wotje, while Navy Liberators, Catalinas, Venturas and search planes struck Mili and Taroa in Maloelap Atoll with nearly 21 tons of explosives. A single Navy Liberator dropped three tons of bombs on Jaluit.
Wake hit heavily
Two squadrons of four-engined Coronado flying boats – the seaplane version of the Liberator – made what Pacific Fleet headquarters called a “strong attack” on Wake Island, halfway between Pearl Harbor and Tokyo, Sunday night. All bombs landed in or near the target area.
Evidence that the enemy was caught by surprise while their attention was diverted to the Marshalls was seen in the fact that all planes returned safely to their bases.
Wake, 2,000 miles west of Pearl Harbor, was last raided Oct. 5-6, when carrier-based planes were credited with virtually neutralizing the tiny island base seized by Japan from the United States Dec. 22, 1941.
Vandegrift defends island-hopping plan
New York (UP) –
Lt. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, today scored critics of the Pacific area’s island-hopping strategy, asserting that “some people would like to believe there is some mysterious shortcut to Japan.”
Speaking at the North Atlantic Area Conference of the American Red Cross, Gen. Vandegrift said the need for Red Cross services will be “sharply accelerated” by the type of warfare necessary in the Pacific.
He said:
We may as well be frank and admit that we got off to a slow start, and that Japan has prepared her defenses well.
On most islands we have to fight the enemy, the jungle and disease. On atolls, such as Tarawa, we have to fight just the enemy. But that does not put the odds in our favor. On the contrary, the odds are normally against us.