Isolation of What?

Refueled, revictualed and rearmed after their February strikes against the Tokyo area, the fast carrier task groups of the Pacific Fleet were on the rampage again. Presumably still operating as Task Force 58, under Vice Admiral Marc Andrew Mitscher, they appeared defiantly this week southeast of Kyushu Island, where they were ringed about by enemy bases in the Izu Islands, in Japan proper and in the Ryukyus. If the Jap Navy--or that part of it has been repaired--wanted a fight, it could have it.

At dawn Mitscher's attack groups studded the sky over Shikoku, over the Inland Sea, over western Honshu and over Kyushu. The Japs were sadly confused, but they finally settled on the salient facts:

1) as in the previous interdiction attacks, when the Iwo battlefield was being isolated, the main targets were airfields;

2) the attackers came in waves, 800 before noon, a total of 1,400 by 2 p.m.;

3) despite claims of damage inflicted on U.S. carriers by Jap aircraft, the task force remained in the area, and a repeat performance was given the following day, with the emphasis on the seaport of Kobe and the naval base of Kure.

One question stood out: granted that . tactical air assaults on airfields, seaports and naval bases are designed primarily to isolate a battlefield, what battlefield was being isolated? Southwest of the target areas lay the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa* and the China coast. The Japs could take their choice and pay the price.

* Formosa also was being hammered by Liberators from Luzon, which dropped 825 tons in five days.

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