ON NEW BRITAIN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 61, 21 December 1943, Page 4

ON NEW BRITAIN

PROGRESS BY AMERICANS.

APROACHING AN AIR STRIP.

ENEMY RETIRES IN NEW GUINEA

(Special Australian Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

(Rec. TL4S)

SYDNEY, This Day.

The. American invasion forces on New Britain are approaching an air strip about four miles east of the Arawe plantation. The strip, former- ( ly a civil emergency landing field, is overgrown with weeds and was little used by the Japanese. It. is on an elevated tongue of land and is about. 600 yards long and six across. The Americans are working at high speed to fortify their beachhead from Arawe to Umtingalu village. Latest reports of the landing and fighting on the Huon Peninsula, New Guinea, reveal that the Japanese in the coastal sector have been swept back to within a few hundred yards of the Masaweng River, about 12 miles north of Finschhafen. The Japanese are still trying to escape though the trapped remnants of the enemy force have made suicide stands. More than 300 dead Japanese have been counted in the last fortnight’s fighting in this sector. However, war correspondents in the area point out that casualties in jungle warfare rarely give any indication of the intensity of the fighting or the number of troops involved. It is regarded as certain that heavy artillery and aerial bombardments of retreating Japanese have inflicted several hundred more casualties above number killed in the closer combat.