The Daily Alaska empire., 1945-06-18
FIRE BOMBS
 DROPPED IN
 DAY ATTACK
Industrial Sections of Nips Hif : Gains Made on
 Various Fronts
By LEONARD MILLIMAN Associated Press War Editor)

Associated Press War Edit0r)
 Fire-raging Superforts put the torch to four more Japanese cities with 5000 tons of incendiary bombs today as American ground forces stepped up the Nipponese death rate in the closing stages of the Okinawa and Philippine campaigns.
 Japanese soldiers lost the will to fight and surrendered in unpreced- entedly large numbers as they saw nearly 5000 of their comrades killed daily in the island battles.
 Allied commands ignored Japa- nese reports of pre-invasion naval bombardment of the Balikpapan oil refinery area of Borneo.
 Gains Reported Substantial gains were reported on northwest Borneo and southeast China. parallelling rapid advance of U. s. 37th Division infantrymen on the Cagayan Valley plains of the northern Philippines.
 Small but significant gains were scored by four U. s. divisions on Okinawa through concentrated Jap anese machinegun fire as Tanks cut off one segment of the Nipponcse suicide force and established firm control of four heights dominating Tiara Kiri' plateau
 Both Allied and Japanese spokes- men predicted the war would be speeded up. Tokyo foresaw an im- minent assault on Japan or the China coast, stemming from Okin- ava.
 Firepower Invasion
 Whenever or wherever 1t comes it will be backed by firepower such as the world never before has known said Rear Adm George F. Hussey, Jr., U. g. Navy Ordnance Chief. It wolves $240, ,000, 900 monthly production of explosives. about third of 1t going for rockets.
 Approximately 450 Supers burn ed substantial holes in four small parts of the Japanese Empire when they hit this morning at chemical, aircraft, railway, steel and oil re- finery plants in Kagoshima and Omuta on Kyushu Island. and HA- mapatsu and Yokksichi on Honshu.
 Leaves Town Hot
 Returning airmen said the attack on all four industrial towns was highly successful Kagoshima was brightly lighted when the B-2gs swept over and the bombardiers left it too hot town for anybody" Fires seemed to burn hole through the overcast the fliers said, and added. you can write off Kago- shima"
 B29s felt the heat from three large fires lighted in Yokkaichi. smoke billowed 15.000 feet above Hamamatsu Tokyo admitted dam age in all four cities. The raids were the first against Omota and Yak kaichi
 Smaller aircraft knocked out 30 Japanese ships in an attack on z. shipyard in southern Japan.
 On Okinawa the us. Sixth Mar inc Division completed mopping tip Oroku Peninsula, and joined other Tenth Army forces cutting up ap- proximately 10000 Nipponese left on Hara Kiri Plateau With the First Division Marines they isolated one small group.
 The 96th Infantry Division cap tured and began cleaning out Yuza Hill from which the Japanese had been raking the flank of the First Marines, under perhaps the heaviest machine gun barrage of the cam paign. With the aid of Japanese artillery bombardment of its own men, the Seventh Army Division seized and mopped up two hills on the eastern end of the line. I Tn eight days the Tanks killed 12,756 Japanese, including Adm. Minoru Ota. enemy naval com mander on Okinawa. With prisoners taken this brought Japanese losses to 80.459 killed teight times an- nounced U. s. fatalities) and 1880 | prisoners.
 Enemy losses in the Philippines reached 4o2 2,363, eight times U. 8. casualties. Last weeks total was 9.2l0 Nipponese dead and l037 pris- cners, unprecedented in any phase of the war.
 Chinese columns drove to points 2l miles southwest and 27 miles west of Liuchow. key southeast China l transportation center and former U. s. air base.