Two First Teams

Last week while they wereputting in only day-to-day tactical details on the Pacific war map,U.S. commanders were mixing the tints for more broad-stroke strategy.

At headquarters on Guam which his forces had just recaptured, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz gave an idea of the method to be used. It will be continuous blows of Nimitz' mighty Central Pacific forces --two complete teams: the Third Fleet under Admiral Halsey, with the Third Amphibious Group under Rear Admiral Conolly and the III Amphibious Corps under Major General Geiger; the Fifth Fleet under Admiral Spruance, with the Fifth Amphibious Group under Rear Admiral Hill and the V Amphibious Corps under Major General Schmidt.

The commanders of the Fifth units will plan and execute one operation. While it is in progress, Halsey and the Third units will plan another. This they will execute while Spruance & Co. prepare the next.

Doug and Bill. Since Halsey had been in the Honolulu conferences with President Roosevelt and General MacArthur, he was unofficially nominated as the likeliest commander for naval forces to cover MacArthur's return to the Philippines. The groundwork for this leapfrog move, had already been prepared. Incessant pressure by Lieut. General George C. Kenney's Far Eastern Air Forces, said MacArthur this week, had apparently forced the enemy to withdraw his air forces westward from the Molucca Islands* to bases beyond Allied bomber range.

Said MacArthur: "This, together with the limitation of his shipping, renders his numerous and powerful garrisons there strategically impotent for anything but local action."

The Challenging Twentieth. While the next major moves were in preparation, the Jap was kept rocking on his heels by jabs from air forces working from all points of the compass, and by a heavy B-29 blow against the homeland.

Brigadier General La Verne ("Blondy") Saunders launched the Twentieth Bomber Command on the heaviest aerial assault yet staged from Asiatic bases. He threw his full striking power into a 24-hour assault; he challenged the defensive reserves of the Jap air force with the first daylight raid on the homeland--the kind of mission for which the Superfortress was designed.

The target was an old favorite, Yawata on Kyushu. Over Yawata's steel plants, the B-29s wheeled into the heaviest ack-ack barrage the enemy had ever thrown up.

Through waves of black, scudding flak, Jap fighters corkscrewed toward the giant bombers. The lead bombers went over so fast and so high that the Japs could hardly get a pass at them. One fighter rammed a bomber it had been following, and both fell to destruction. But most Nip fighters cagily stayed beyond range of the B-29s' heavy armament until they could pick on a plane damaged by flak.

The Enemy's Best. A hundred fighters had taken the air; twelve were confirmed destroyed, twelve were probables. The Jap home air force's most resolute opposition had failed to prevent a single U.S. element reaching its target. By the time the last bomber left, the afternoon sun had been blotted from Yawata's mills. Smoke was so dense that bomb bursts from the last planes could not be seen.

The fires burned far into the night, served as beacons for bombers making the second strike, around midnight. The attack group was smaller this time.

In the daylight blow, four planes were lost to enemy action; all the planes in the night raid returned to their bases. The Twentieth had paid heavily in men and material to ascertain what the Imperial Air Force could do to defend its homeland. But if this was the Jap's best, it was not good enough.

* Between western New Guinea and the southern Philippines. Principal island: Halmahera.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.