Japanese air attacks on the Mariana Islands 27 in preparation for operations against Japan itself. The USAAF bases in the Mariana Islands were within range of a number of Japanese air bases in the Pacific. These included Wake Island to the east, Truk and the Gilbert and Marshall Islands to the southeast, Woleai to the south and Yap to the southwest. To the north the Japanese had air bases in the Nampo Shoto chain of islands and Bonin Islands, which included three airstrips on Iwo Jima. Several of the minor islands in the Mariana chain also remained in Japanese hands, and there were airfields on Rota and
Japanese archipelago the archipelago from Japan's colonies and other territories in the first half of the 20th century. The archipelago consists of 6,852 islands (here defined as land more than 100 m in circumference), of which 430 are inhabited. The four main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu; Honshu is the largest and referred to as the Japanese mainland. The current Japanese archipelago topography is: Japanese archipelago The is a group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk northeast to the Philippine Sea south along the northeastern