AMERICAN ATTACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1943, Page 3

AMERICAN ATTACK

ON MARCUS ISLAND y REPORTED BY JAPANESE. AIR & NAVAL FORCES IN ACTION. LONDON, September 1. The Japanese announce an attack by American aircraft and naval vessels on Marcus Island, 1,200 miles south-east .., of Tokio. A Washington naval spokesman said a raid by a carrier task force was presumably being made. No reports have been received from the force, nor were they expected until the radio could be used with safety. AIR BASES NOW HELD BY AMERICANS. WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF JAPAN. SAN FRANCISCO, September !. The United States now has airfields as close to Japan as the air-craft-carrier Hornet was when it loosed General Doolittle’s bombers for the raid on Tokio, said Lieuten-ant-General John Dewitt at a Press conference. He expressed the view that successful Allied landings could now be made in the Kurile Islands north of Japan. Shuttle bombing trips against Japan from the Aleutians to China would be less difficult than General Doolittle’s flight, and such an enterprise is likely as soon as the question of supply at both ends of the route is solved. ‘The whole situation in the Pacific has changed as a result of General MacArthur’s advances and the advances in the Aleutians, and now we can decide where to strike next,” he said.