The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-07-10
l,2OO Planes Support Jap Coastal Attacks
tcontinued from Page D

On all sides of Tokyo.
 And around mid-day, the enemy reported that another 100 Army Mustang fighters, accompanied by several B-20 superfortresses, joined in the Navy. strike by attacking shipping and shore installations in the Osaka-Kobe area southwest of Tokyo.
 The carrier-b based raiders centered their bombs and rocket fire on Tokyo itself and the 70 to 30 air. fields surrounding the gutter capi- tai.
 They were guided into the enemy shores by the light of huge fires leaping through five Japanese cities, where a force of 500 to $50 B-29 Euperfortresses had unloaded $500 tons of demolition and incendiary bombs shortly before daybreak.
 The first Navy raiding planes smothered the Japanese ground de- lenses and pinned the enemy's de- lending aircraft to the earth. Hours later, not a single Japanese plane had broken through to attack the American warships off shore-the U. S. Third fleets task force 38 under Vice-Admiral John s. Nc Cain.
 Boldly challenging the Japanese air and surface forces to battle, Mccain broke radio silence to give a running account of the strike And he identified his top flag con- -1anders and 26 of his attacking warships, including some of the biggest and most modern carriers, battleships and cruisers in the Pa cific fleet.
 Dispatches broadcast from the decks of Task Force 38 said the Navy flyers were meeting no enemy fighters over Tokyo and that the attack showed no signs of slacken- ing early this afternoon, some eight hours after it began.
 Dramatic Communique
 A dramatic communique from Admiral Chester w. Nimitz said complete surprise" was effected, and his words were borne out by a belated Tokyo radio announce ment.
 Tokyo failed to mention the at- tack until three hours after Nimitz issued his communique. Then a vaguely worded Japanese communi- que admitted continuing" at tack on the Tokyo area by about 800'' carrier planes. It reported that the first raiders struck about 5:10t a. m. (Tokyo time) and were still attacking at one p. m.
 Significantly, the Japanese made no claims to have downed any of the raiders and ignored all ref erence to damage in the target area.
 Nimitz' first communique also gave only the sketchiest details of the attack pending a full report from Admiral William P. Halsey, commander of the third fleet.
 But McCain's preliminary report said the carrier fliers sowed a trail of death and ruin across a broad arc of Eastern Honshu on all sides of Tokyo.
 Among the men o'war identified in his task force were four carri- CTS. four battleships, four cruisers and IA destroyers. They included | the 27,000-ton carriers Lexington and Essex, the 10,000-ton carriers Independence and San Jacinto, the t5,000-ton battleship Iowa, perhaps the most powerful fighting ship | afloat, and the 35,O00-ton battle wagons Indiana, Massachusetts and | South Dakota.
 It was the first major assault for Halsey's third fleet since the gruff- spoken seadog-whose announced ambition is to ride Emperor Hiro- hito's white horse through the streets of Tokyo-led his ships back into the Pacific battle zone last May 27.
 His carrier planes carried out one Bmall-scale attack on Kyushu early in June and they blacked out com- pletely until their surprise appear ance off Tokyo this morning.
 The last big carrier strike on the Japanese capital was delivered on Feb. 25-26, when Admiral Ray mond Spruance's fifth fleet teamed up with the army's superfortresses l in savage blow at the city. In that operation, the navy destroyed or damaged 233 Japanese planes and 31 ships.
 On Feb. 15-16, in the first car-