Evening star., 1945-03-26
Tokyo Reports
i. 5. Attempt 10
Land in Ryukyus
Site Only BIS Miles
South of Homeland;
Confirmation Lacking
Ry the Associated Press.

Py the Associated Press
GUAM, Mar. 26.- American
troops, supported by intensive
bombardment from large car
rier-battleship task force, are
attempting" landings on the
Okinawa group in the Ryukyu
chain, only 325 miles south of
Kyushu in the Japanese home
land, Domei news agency report
ed without confirmation today.
Aerial bombardment of several of
the Ryukyu Islands, including Oki-
nawa itself. and of air bases in all of
the Southern japanese home islands
OF Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu.
preceded the Japanese agencys re-
port of landings.
Tokyo said Okinawa itself was
bombarded three times Saturday by
American battleships - presumably
some of the biggest. newest I6-inch
battlewagons in Admiral Raymond
A. Spruance's 5th Fleet. Admiral
Chester w. Nimitz has announced
only that Minami Daito, $50 miles
each of Okinawa, was shelled.
Good Harbors in Area.
The enemy broadcast, made In
English and recorded by the Federal
communications Commission, re-
ported the landings were attempted
on Toka Shima and Aka Jima, small
Islands west OF the southwestern tip
of Okinawa.
OkinaWa, most important in the
Ryukyu chain and an ideal base for
strikes at either Japan or the China
coast. probably would be the Grief
objective in any amphibious op-
Grafton in the Central Ryukyus.
Okinawa has several airfields
and good, harbors suitable for an
chorage of large warships.
Tokyo said a powerful American
task force of '15 standard and con-
verted carriers, IL battleships. 10
cruisers. 80 destroyers as well as
innumerable auxiliary vessels" was
lying southwest of Okinawa to
support and protect the landing
troops.
Tokyo Contradicts Itself.
Japanese garrison units now are
fiercely intercepting enemy forces"
that by means of approximately
100 barges" attempted the land
ings, Tokyo said.
Tokyo's statement that IS carriers
were included in the great naval
forces off Okinawa contradicted its
own earlier claim of having sunk
several f1attops in Vice Admiral
Marc A. Mitscher's continuing raids
all last week against Southern
Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and the
Ryukyus. Tokyo had reported Is
carriers originally in Admiral Mits-
cher's force before it claimed any
sinkings.
Capture of Okinawa would give
the United States control of the
East China Sea and would provide
airf1elds to strike at the Japanese
homeland, Formosa and China with
heavy bombers by even the smallest
United States bombers and bomb
carrying fighter planes.
Control of the East China Sea
would be possibly the wars greatest
single step toward cutting Japan's
lines of sea communication with the
Netherlands Indies and other stolen
territory to the southwest which
produce war-vital rubber, oil and
other supplies.
Establishment of Allied air bases
on Okinawa also would go a long
way toward cutting the empires
aerial communication with these
lands.
Okinawa Long and Narrow.
Okinawa, once an important stag
ing point for Japanese planes en-
route to Formosa and the Philip
pines. is long, narrow island-3O
miles by 10 at its widest. The
northeastern section is rugged,
wooded, mountainous and sparsely
populated but the japanese have
built up strong bases on the hills
and plateaus in the southwest. Most
of its more than 100000 people live
there. The land is highly culti-
waited.
The island is fringed with reefs.
making landings in small boats or
amphibious vehicles necessary but
somewhat hazardous.
However, available maps indicate
That. once ashore, troops would have
good, nearly fiat or slightly rising
land for few miles inland. Such
terrain would deny the enemy one
OF the big defensive advantages it
has had on virtually all central and
lar western Pacific islands-rugged.
mountainous country and cave-stud-
ded cliffs.
The attack on Okinawa was pre-
ceded by week-long carrier plane
blasting of Japanese airfields from
which the enemy might have laras-
sed an amphibious landing, by
severe Gripping of remnants of the
imperial fleet, bombed and tor
pedoed by carrier pilots who caught
the warships in the narrow Inland
Sea and by the Armys giant BIS
bombers which wrought such de-
struction on war plants in Tokyo
Nogoya, Osaka and Kobe that
Japan's production program Will be
set back for months, and by Philip
pines-based Army bombers which
blasted airhelds and other install
lations on Formosa.
Admiral Nimitz reported today
that the latest attack by Admiral
tsee RYUKYUs, Page sA-5.5