Japan Under Bombardment
On the day after the Germans had been surprised by the daring daylight raid of our four-engined Lancaster bombers on Augsburg
the Japanese received an unexpected blow dealt at the heart of their Empire by American aeroplanes. Hitherto immune in their own homeland during the whole period of the war with China and the greater war that has followed, the Japanese have now felt the weight of heavy bombing in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe. This was literally a bolt from the blue. They did not know, nor in fact do they or we know yet, from what platform their enemy was striking—whether it was from a fleet of aircraft-carriers in the Pacific, or from some far-distant secret base, or whether these bombers were on their 'way to China, dropping their bombs en route on the factories, refineries and ship- building yards of industrial Japan. The silence so long kept by the Ameticans is in itself disturbing to the enemy. The accounts received from Japanese sources have variously estimated the number of the assailants as ten and sixty, and the attempts to discount the amount of damage done are not consistent with the broadcasts to the people or the expressions of concern for the well-being of the Emperor. But whatever its effects, the attack is symbolic. It is an earnest of more to come, of the gathering strength of the United Nations, which already have the means to endanger the long-strung- out communications of the Japanese forces and to strike at the source.
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