The Ypsilanti Daily Press

Low flying Japanese planes blasted violently at the downtown district of Singapore today as Japan's siege armies were reported only 5 miles away and London conceded that the fall of the city appeared near—perhaps only a matter of hours. Domel, official Japanese news agency, said Japanese assault forces were preparing to batter their way into the metropolitan district today. Dispatches from the beleaguered island said waves of Rising Sun planes subjected the city to almost constant raids this morning. Anti-aircraft guns kept up a strong fire, but the planes flew over the city. C. Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press, the last American correspondent remaining in Singapore, gave this vivid account of the city's dying hours in a dispatch filed amid bombs bursting 'so close I had to duck' behind a wall: 'British fighter pilots are still taking on the enemy against overwhelming odds. . . . If ever brave men earned undying glory, these RAF pilots have this tragic morning. . . . Gun crews keep on fighting, their guns peppering smoke into the limited ceiling every time Japanese planes come near—that, almost constantly.' As McDaniel wrote, the German radio quoted Tokyo reports that Japanese troops already had penetrated the western part of the city. Simultaneously, London quarters said Singapore's out-numbered defenders were counter-attacking furiously, and a Singapore radio broadcast declared the city was still holding out. 'Heavy fighting was in progress on Singapore Island this morning,' the broadcast said tersely.