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 settlement in the Marshall Islands across all 33 atolls in 1940. Within the same year, the mandated islands had a total Japanese population of 77,000. The largest towns in the Marshall Islands, Jaluit and Jabor, had a thousand Japanese each, while in the most isolated atolls, the Japanese populace amounted to no more than a few individuals. Korean labourers were also counted recognised as Japanese in official statistics, and accounted for another 1,200 individuals which were brought into the Marshall Islands during the war. There was a sizeable minority of people of mixed Japanese and Marshallese heritage, which was more common in settlements with a