SEVENTY-SIX TANKS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 233, 29 June 1944, Page 5

SEVENTY-SIX TANKS

Destroyed Or Captured On Saipan ’(Received June 28,11.15 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 28. • According to reports from Saipan, says the United Press Pearl Harbour correspondent, the Americans destroyed 36 and captured 40 Japanese tanks in advances against the stiffest enemy resistance yet encountered in the Pacific war. The Japanese are employing mobile artillery and tanks in unprecedented numbers. The enemy is entrenched in caves impervious to anything but direct hits. Saipan threatens to develop into . a terrible campaign of bloodletting with fighting in the streets, houses, mountains, forests, and canefields, and combining the worst features of terrain of all the Pacific battlefronts, says the correspondent of the combined American Press aboard the flagship off Saipan. The Japanese still hold about half Saipan, which gives both forces room to manoeuvre. Our line roughly cuts inland, to the centre of the island, indicating that the Japanese will be able to defend in depth, and possibly presaging a bloodier battle than took place in the first fortnight. Tlie Americans hold complete sea and ata superiority, but the enemy is still making light night raids. The United Press correspondent says that alert army troops who spotted Japanese soldiers moving machineguns and 20-millimetre guns from an area of underbrush drove off the enemy and captured a highly-important ammunition dump in a cave 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. In it they found bombs up. to 50001 b., grenades, land mines, and rifle and machinegun ammunition. Tokio official radio announced that 170 enemy planes raided Guam yesterday. The damage was negligible. The radio claimed that 16 planes were shot down.