Plans & Planes

For the first time since D-day in Normandy, 13 months ago, U.S. foot soldiers were engaged in no large-scale operations anywhere in the world. But last week the ground force commanders--and the admirals who put them ashore--left no doubt that such idleness would be shortlived. The Tenth Army's "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell told his troops he hoped they would be home by next Independence Day. Admiral Thomas Cassin Kinkaid of the Seventh Fleet was for keeping up the pressure, "so Japan can't get back on balance."

In San Francisco, Navy Secretary James Forrestal held a planning session with Fleet Admirals King and Nimitz. Also present was shy, calculating Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance, commander of the Fifth Fleet, which has conducted most big Pacific amphibious operations in the sweep westward from Tarawa.

Future Strategy. For once, the admirals and ground commanders seemed more optimistic than the air generals. Even the airmen's General Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, who yields to no man in all-around cheeriness, conceded that the Japs might last through 1946. Behind this unusual alignment, observers could detect a mild conflict in strategy: the admirals seemed to favor invasion of Japan at the earliest possible moment as the best way to get the war finished quickly; some airmen clung to the hope that air power, given enough time, could pound Japan into surrender.

Current Operations. For the moment, at any rate, air power was working grimly on Japan. Planes from General George C. Kenney's Far Eastern Air Force moved up to Okinawa,* and joined in operations against Kyushu. Iwo-based P-51 Mustangs strafed Tokyo's "protective" airfields, against no airborne opposition. Blockading aircraft from Fleet Air Wing 1 sank six Jap ships off China and Korea.

But the B-29s still carried the big load. By the end of the first week in July, the Twentieth Air Force had burned out more than 126 square miles of 25 Jap cities.

In six days last week there were two strikes of more than 450 planes each, one of 600 (on which not a B-29 was lost). By their own admission, the B-29 flyers were running out of industrial targets. Next on the priority list: railroads, hydroelectric plants and port installations. One prime target remains out of even B-29 range: the Jap air force. Since fighter opposition lately has been almost nil, the Japs presumably have withdrawn their remaining planes to the far north, saving them for the invasion.

*Engineers have found that Okinawa can hold three times as many airfields as originally planned, with a paved area equal to 400 miles of two-lane highways. The smallest field will handle twice as much traffic as New York's LaGuardia Field.

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