Evening star., 1944-02-18
Task Forces
Are Silent on
Further Details
ALLIED BOMBERS BLAST six
ships from Jap convoy in Bis
marck Islands. Page Az

sAA--AI~ oStV4oAnGo Oh
ships from Jap convoy in Bis
marck Islands. Page A.:
Ey the Associated Press,
The Toxic radio indicated to-
day that ground fighting was
in progress in the japanese mid
Pacific bastion of Truk after a
heavy attack by powerful United
States Navy. carrier units pro-
tected by battleships, cruisers
and destroyers.
The Japanese radio, without con-
firmation, declared that powerful
mechanized 4sunits as we'll as air
power" had been used in the bold
assault, but that "it seems it does
not go beyond the scope of a strong
reconnaissance"
The Chungking radio said the
japanese radio had announced that
'strong motorized Japanese forces
and japanese troops are involved in
fierce and continuing action oppos-
ing American forces which landed
on Truk'
This was about eight hours after
Tokio's first broadcast acknowledge
ment of the action.
There was nothing from any other
source to support the implication
that American ground forces might
have attempted a landing. Japanese
broadcasts in the past have limited
prematurely at American landings,
perhaps with the purpose of claim
ing that they had been defeated in
the event that the landings did not
develop.
Fierce Fighting Reported.
Earlier, Toxic quoted a pm. i'm
perial headquarters communique as
saying fierce fighting is now going
on between our forces and the en-
emy."
A strict radio silence by the task
forces, however, blanketed the op-
erations against the vital enemy
base nearly $500 miles from Pearl
Harbor.
president Roosevelt told his
news conference today he had no
late reports on the attack on
Truk.
Told that the Japanese con-
tended that Americans were 60
ing ashore, the President said he
didn't know
Several hundred aircraft ripped at
Truk at daylight Wednesday in the
first assault on the reef -encrusted
group of 10 islands--a bristling
fortress in the Central Carolines
where the japanese have had 30
years to build an "impregnable" de-
fense post.
Text of COmmunique.
Admiral Chester w. Nimitz, COM
mander- in chief of the Pacific Fleet,
announced tersely at Pearl Harbor
yesterday:
AT daylight yesterday morning
16 February, West Longitude date)
powerful naval task forces of the
United States Pacific Fleet COM
menced an attack on the Japanese
naval base at Truk with several
hundred of our planes participant
ing. No further details are avail
able"
The operation, challenging the
enemy's approaches to the Philip
pines and the japanese mainland
as never before, came less than two
weeks after American capture of
KWajalein, largest of the Marshall
Islands, nearly 1000 miles east of
Truk.
Photographs Taken.
Two American Liberators carry
Ing % men flew a roundtrip of
nearly 1000 miles from the Solo
mons to photograph the islands in
stallatlons and shipping February
4. 1t was disclosed, and one pilot re-
ported seeing more warships in the
40-mile-wide lagoon than "I ever
saw at ono time in Pearl Harbor."
Although there was no elabora-
ton, there was nothing whatever to
indicate that the escorting battle
ships, cruisers and destroyers had
risked the concentrated fire of jap
anese fleet units and shore batteries
AS well as defending planes to move
in and shell Truk.
Until Truk's airfelds were neu-
tralized and any carriers inside the
lagoon were knocked out, a ship
bombardment would be a doubly
DANGEROUS venture.
Carries on U. S. Offensive.
But the assault did carry the
American offensive past such Jap
anese-held bases as Eniwetok in the
western Marshalls and Kusaie and
Ponape in the eastern Carolines.
Ponape was hit Monday by SIS tons
of bombs dropped by land-based
planes.
The Toxic radio has made little
mention since the war began of Truk
which the japanese occupied and
fortified in violation of a, League
Of Nations mandate.
Barring Truk to visitors, the Japs
threw such veil of secrecy about
1t that it was not pierced until Feb
ruary 4, when the two big Liberators
made their daring flight to photo
graph Truk and brought back pic
lures after eluding anti-aircraft
fire and enemy planes.
Capt. James @. Yawn of Bogue
Chitto, Miss, said that through a
gap IN the clouds he counted Is