Word: kyushu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...March 19. Fifty miles off the coast of Japan, Task Force 58 was launching an air assault against Shikoku and Kyushu when a Jap bomber dropped out of the low overcast, rocketed in over the bow of the 27,000-ton carrier Franklin ("Big Ben") and swept the length of her flight deck. Not until too late did antiaircraft crews get their guns on the raider. From the Jap's belly two 500-lb. bombs plummeted down...
South from Kyushu. Jap planes buzzed out of the overcast. Escorting warships, deployed around the dead Franklin, fought them off and fought the Franklin's fires. It was now past noon. The Franklin was still belching smoke and beginning to list heavily when the cruiser Pittsburgh finally succeeded in taking her in tow. At three knots the convoy started crawling away from the shores of Japan, the Franklin yawing and staggering in her agony. Men went to work to correct her 13° list. Hydraulic controls for counter-flooding were out, but Downes and his men put on rescue...
This week the Jap radio underscored the Admiral's words by announcing that a tremendous force of 900 carrier planes was attacking airfields and other installations on Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu, making 14 strikes between dawn and 2 p.m. Right along with it, Japan was catching the heaviest punches ever thrown by the B-29 Superforts (see below...
...Superfortresses now have a handy way station-Iwo Jima-on which to land when they are lamed in combat or too short of fuel to make it back to Guam, Saipan or Tinian. Fighter escort from Iwo has also helped to cut losses. Result: the Jap airfields on Kyushu have taken a persistent beating, and enemy fighter production has been cut 50%. In April, the B-295 unloaded 30,000 tons of bombs-as much as in the ten preceding months-but U.S. losses dropped to half the rate for the previous three months...
...against Japan. A first force of more than 400 set huge, billowing fires in the naval fueling station and synthetic fuel factory at Tokuyama, the big oil refinery at Otaki, and the oil storage installations on Oshima (biggest in the home islands). They also flogged four airfields on Kyushu and Shikoku. Fighter opposition was timid, but there was heavy flak from Jap warships. Nevertheless, not one of the big bombers was lost...