The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-07-09
Gain
 1000 Tons Daily
(Continued from Page D

Mccain, chief of fast carriers in !! Admircal William F. Halsey's vet eran Third Fleet.
 Position Naval Secret Its position in what were still nominally enemy waters was a closely guarded naval secret, but its mission was not.
 '"The present mission of this pow erful task force is to wipe out Jap anse air power and shipping" a spokesman aboard McCain'S flag ship announced bluntly. Carrier planes from the task force, he added, will team up with the B-29 fleets and other land based warplanes massed on the Pa cific islands in the mounting pre- invasion bombardment of Japan. On Okinawa, Mai Gen. Louis Woods, chief of the Marine Tacti- | cal Air Force, declared that enemy aerial opposition was weakening.
 Good targets are getting scarce. Even though we are now ranging into the heart of the empire, Woods said.
 The aerial defenses of Tokyo it. self took terrific pounding from American Army fighters based on Two Jima over the weekend, and other Yank flyers piled up further losses in Japans dwindling mer- chant fleet.
 Three waves of Mustang fighters, each about 50 strong and each led by a single B-29 Superfortress, lashed the Tokyo area with rockets, cannon and machine gun fire at midday Sunday.
 Only g. handful of enemy planes rose to challenge them and the raiders roared in at roof-top level to rip up the Hyakurigahara and Tokorozawa airfields. They set hangars and other military install lations aflame and destroyed or damaged 45 Japanese planes.
 s Seven Mustangs were shot down in the attack, but three pilots had been rescued by late yesterday and it was indicated further rescues might be possible.
 Eight more enemy aircraft were wrecked by Army, Navy and Marine planes that struck from Okinawa of Japanese bases on Kyushu, For mosa, the northern Ryukyus and the SakiShima Islands.
 The Okinawa raiders also sank or damaged 16 more Japanese ships, running to 305 the bag of enemy vessels caught in the blockade dur ing the past IS days.
 Four of the enemy ships were bagged of Korea, which took an- other pounding from American Navy privateers Sunday.
 Jittery Japanese broadcasts said other American warplanes were ranging far and wide over Japan,s by-passed island holdings, in the Pacific.
 Tokyo said 10 Superfortresses and 140 other planes hit Japanese held Marcus Island 1,185 miles southeast Of Tokyo Sunday in the first B-29 attack of the war on that central Pacific base. Other U. S. Army fighters were reported reconnoiter- ing in force over Chchi Island in the Bonins, 600 miles southeast of Tokyo.
 | The spreading American air blows touched off wave of uneasy spec ulation in Semi-oficial Tokyo quar- ters. The Japanese people were warned that American raids would increase in scale and intensity with the end of the rainy season, now al- most over.
 Tokyo revealed that fire fighting equipment was being rushed from the ruined major cities of Japan to smaller and more vulnerable war centers that recently have become targets for the American raiders.
 At the same time. the enemy ad- mitted that 100000 refugees from Honshu's bombed out cities are streaming northward to Hokkaido, northernmost of the Japanese home islands.
 Defenses Alerted
 Japanese defenses as far south as singapore were alerted against pos sible Allied invasion moves and Ad- miral Kitchisaburo Nomura. Jap ans Pearl Harbor envoy to Wash ington, called on the people of the home islands for a redoubled ef- fort.
 "As long as the enemy asks for Japan's unconditional surrender she will have to shed blood proportion ate to the time and intensity of each battle" said Nomura in what might have been interpreted as an- other tacit ppeal to the United States to lower Its surrender terms.
 Still another enemy spokesman, Vice Admiral Takamaki of the mu- nitions ministry's naval armament bureau. declared that Japan's "only f0ad to victory lay in an all-out