For Japs there was no longer protection from U.S. air power in distance.
They got the final proof last week when B-29 Superfortresses of the Twentieth U.S. Air Force bombed the great Palembang oil refineries in remote southeastern Sumatra in the longest-range air assault of the war. If the B-29s could reach Palembang they could reach anywhere in Japan's homeland islands or in Greater East Asia.
For this mission, a "medium-sized" force of the great bombers flew from a base in the Southeast Asia Command near the equator, about 1,800 miles from the target....
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