ENEMY PLASTERED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 8, 20 October 1943, Page 4

ENEMY PLASTERED.

NEW ZEALAND GUNNERS’ ACTION ARTILLERY ON VELLA LAVELLA. VELLA LAVELA, October 11. Perspiring gunners of a New Zealand artillery regiment poured 251 b shells at a rate of more than five rounds a minute into the Japanese lines at one stage of the campaign that pushed the enemy off Vella Lavella. One gun, in 13 minutes of the barrage, got 72 rounds away—an amazing performance in the slipperiness of mud and sweat. The artillery played - a big part in the New Zealanders’ victory. Unable to make more than painstakingly slow progress against an enemy well conaealed in the jungle, the infantry called for artillery support on the second day of the action to drive the enemy from the slopes of a gully where machine-gun nests had inflicted several casualties on New Zealand patrols. “Machine-gun Gully,” as it is known, lay right in the paths of bur advance, and although we had it surrounded, the prevalence of snipers threatened to make the task of its capture both long and expensive. Late in the afternoon a gunnery oflicer crept to the head of the gully, registered the guns while Japanese bullets flew perilously close to his observation post, and retired. All that night shells were hurled at intervals of a few minutes, plastering the slopes, and in the morning 20 Japanese dead were found when the infantry moved in.

Barrages from the big guns assisted in clearing the enemy from each successive position he took up, gave him little time to consolidate, and shattered ttis hopes of posting snipers in trees flanking the jungle tracks. Exploding in the high tops of the forest, shell fragments smashed trees and scattered shrapnel 1 through the undergrowth. The Japanese had only one course open—to beat a retreat. * 4