The Daily Alaska empire., 1945-05-10
OIL (EN1ER5
 OF NIp5 HIT,
 BIG ATTACK
Fighting on 0kindwd Over Mud Western China
 Jap Line Crumbles
By Leonard Milliman Associated Pres War correspondent)

Associated Press War correspondcnp
 Superforts opened new leaks in Japan's disintegratipg oil pipeline today. Waves from a record striking force of more than 400 B-29's bombed major aviation fuel manu- featuring and storage centers.
 The rest of the great flight of Superforts continued neutralizing attacks on southern Japanese air. dromes in support of the Okinawa invasion, where Tanks have suf- fered l6,425 casualties.
 Four divisions of Marines and Infantrymen fought slowly south ward on Okinawa over mud, pin nacled ridges and Nipponese pill boxes.
 Far to the south in the southern Philippines, the Twenty Fourth Division invaded Samal Island without opposition. Samal lies in Javao, Gulf of Mindanao Island, where other Twenty Fourth units launched an offensive to wipe out Japanese trapped in a triangular area and relieve a battalion of Tanks cut off by an enemy coun- teroffensive.
 Important Capture
 Australians captured strategic Api Hill in their drive toward Tarakan's second largest oil field off the Borneo coast. This is the initial campaign to reclaim oil-rich Pacific islands, major goal in Japan's 1922 conquests. Air and sea blockades have already made them as useless to Nippon as the Burma oil fields, recently retaken by the British.
 Development of Dutch Indies and Burma oil wells and refineries be- comes increasingly important.
 Need for them was emphasized by Maj Gen. Claire Chennault, Commander of the U. s. Fourteenth Air Force in China.
 Jap Line Crumbles
 The entire Japanese line threat ening the Fourteenth Air Forces Chihkiang base in western China crumbled yesterday before pow erful Chinese scounter-offensive, Chungking announced.
 Probabilities of an American landing on the China coast were revived by both Chennault and Gen. Brehon Somervell. Chennault said well supplied Chinese troops could successfully handle the re- conquest of the interior of China, implying that American help would be needed on the coast. In the help to be expected from the European theatre, London dis patches indicated, will be at least some of the two or three hundred U-boats the German Navy still had at the time of surrender.
 To Shift Air Power
 Shifting of air power from Europe will be so great, said Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Chief of U. s. Army Air Forces. that we do not expect Japan to stand up under the weight of our air forces as well as Germany did"
 Indicative of what is to come, strong forces of fighter planes raid- ed Japanese air bases near Tokyo Tuesday and found the fields vir- tually deserted.
 Today's B-29 strikes. the first of 400 plane strength in more than a month, concentrated their weight of explosives on oil developments around Japan's Inland Sea.
 Tokyo radio asserted an American Battleship was sunk and two car- riers set afire yesterday in strikes at U. s. Fleet units near Okinawa 325 miles south of Japan. There was no confirmation of this claim. but it was acknowledged that two British warships were damaged in another Ryukyu Island action.
 So far, 36.535 of the estimated 60,o00 Nipponese soldiers on Okin- ava have been killed. This com- pares with 2.684 American soldiers and marines killed. l3,202 wounded and 539 missing.