HOT & DEADLY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 September 1943, Page 3

HOT & DEADLY

AMERICAN AIR ATTACK ON KURILES VICIOUS CURTAINS OF FLAK. SENT UP BY DEFENDING FORCES. irv Teleeraoh —Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, September 15. The attack on the Kuriles on Monday, from which 10 out of 20 American bombers failed to return, was the hottest, deadliest and costliest aerial action in the North Pacific, reports the United Press correspondent at the Eleventh Air Force Headquarters in Alaska. Most of the returning planes were badly shot up and carried dead and wounded among their craws. Two Japanese strongholds, the army staging base at Kashawabara, and the naval base at Kataoka, on Shimushu Island, had obviously been preparing for attacks since the raid on August 8. Pilots described the anti-aircraft fire as the heaviest and most accurate they ever saw. At least one battleship is believed, to have been among the naval craft sending up vicious curtains of flak from Paramushiro Strait. The raiders knocked out 13 of 25 opposing fighters in a hectic 52-minute engagement. One pilot said: “We lacked fighter assistance and had too few bombers to afford mutual support.”