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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 1486.PDF
AUGUST 2ND, 1945 FLIGHT WAR in the Superfortresses Drop 4,000 Ib. Bomb* Peace Feeler : Ultimatum f\ : Japanese AMies "ILLUSTRIOUS LANDING": Lt. P. S. Cole, D.S.C., R.N., crash-lands his Corsair on returning from an airfield-strafing raid over Formosa.S INCE Alamein all Allied suc-cesses have been won by using the three Services as parts of onewhole, none of which could have made a success of a campaign withoutthe other two. The air has played an ever-increasing part in the operations ;but nowhere has it been so prominent as in the war against Japan. Land-based aircraft and carrier-borne machines have alternately been to the fore. The term sea power in-cludes a proportion of air power, and it Was American sea power whichgradually drove the Japanese back from the neighbourhood of Australiato the shores of their own homeland. A terrific land struggle put the air-fields of Okinawa at the disposal of land-based Superfortresses, which nowcan dispense with much of the load of fuel which they used to have tocarry when they operated from Guam, and can use their lifting capacity to•take bombs of 4,000 lb. weight to the industrial cities on Honshu. That isa most important development. At the same time the 3rd Fleet, inwhich ships of the Royal Navy work under the command of the American,Admiral Halsey, have been able to cruise at their pleasure along the HOTTING THINGS UP : Loads of 7o-lb. petrol gel incendiary bombs cascading on to a Japanese city from U.S. Superfortresses. coasts of the Japanese islands, whiletheir big guns have showered shells on the Japanese cities and positions, andthe aircraft have flown freely over the enemy country to deal with targetsbeyond the range of the guns. The British commander, Vice-Admiral SirHenry Rawlings, has with him battle- ' ships and carriers of the most moderndesign. As is natural, the majority of the warships and aircraft are Ameri-can. It was always known that that would be so, just as the last stages ofthe war against Germany were fought by a combined force in which themajority was American. But the British contribution in the Pacific isformidable, and many of the ships have already been in tough actions.Tlje carrier squadron in the British
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