Japanese air attacks on the Mariana Islands and anti-aircraft guns shot down about 37 Japanese aircraft during these raids. After the Marianas began to come under attack, the United States military stepped up its raids on the Japanese-held islands which could be used to launch raids on the B-29 bases. Particular attention was given to Iwo Jima, as it was correctly assumed that the Japanese aircraft which attacked the Marianas were flying from Japan and staging through the island en route to their targets. Following the first raid against Saipan in November, XXI Bomber Command B-29s were dispatched against Iwo Jima's airfields on November 5 and 8.
Japanese settlement in the Marshall Islands closer cultural and economic ties with Japan. Japanese firms that were based on the Marshall Islands since the 1960s actively sought joint ventures with local companies from the 1980s onwards, mainly in the fishery sector. Expatriates usually consisted of Okinawan fishermen based at Majuro, where Japanese companies have built smoking and canning facilities to facilitate the processing of tuna catches. The Marshall Islands remained sparsely populated by Japanese settlers, relative to the other mandated Micronesian islands. The first pre-war census of the Marshall Islands counted 490 Japanese among 10,000 Marshallese, and the number of Japanese settlers increased to 680 scattered