Patersons, Wichitas, Tacomas

B-29 Superforts sent fingers of flame and explosive probing deep into the sources of enemy war power. Two small attacks searched out key Japanese oil plants. Two big raids hit airplane factories and ports on Kyushu and Honshu. It was the middle cities, the Patersons, Wichitas and Tacomas of Japan, that now heard the crump of bombs, the crackle of fire.

Flak was spotty. Fighter opposition--on some raids at least--was weak. But weather was playing the enemy's game. On one raid the cloud cover was so thick that B-29 men could hardly see beyond their wingtips as they nervously watched ice thickening on the leading edges. Soupy fog kept navigators and bombardiers on instruments. After one raid more than 70 Superforts had to make emergency landings on Iwo.*But the planes drilled through, and reported the clouds over one city glowing "like a hot plate" from the flames below.

Then, as the new week began, Major General Curtis LeMay wound up and pitched the biggest Superfort strike yet. Nearly 600 planes dropped 4,000 tons of fire bombs on four new targets in Kyushu and the toe of Honshu. The Japs could begin counting off Kure, greatest naval base on the Inland Sea; Ube, coal and magnesium center; Shimonoseki, seaport; Kumamoto, military and industrial city.

Flyers welcomed news of additional emergency landing fields. Two platoons of Negro troops landed on six pinpoint islands between Saipan and Iwo, and took them at the cost of a single pistol shot. Back from a visit to the Marianas, General of the Army Henry H. Arnold announced that Superforts would soon operate from Okinawa, cutting over 1,000 miles from their round trip to Japan.

But more than 6-295 were fighting the air war against Japan. Allied Army, Navy and Marine air forces, flying every variety of heavy and medium bomber and fighter, helped beat up a 5,000-mile arc. From the Kurils, down through the home islands and the home waters, through east China and the East and South China Seas the planes ranged on missions of blockade, strategic attack and tactical support.

*Iwo, won at the cost of 5,445 Marine lives, had already saved 11,000 6-29 crewmen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.