BOMBERS FIRST

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 45, 23 February 1942, Page 5

BOMBERS FIRST

AGAINST JAPANESE Flying Fortresses Strike At Cruisers Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 22. In the vicinity of Malang, in south-east Java, in addition to the fighting over other parts of the island to-day, one Japanese bomber was shot down. Elsewhere Japanese aerial activity was restricted to incidental machine-gunning of some aerodromes, as a result of which some persons were killed and some woun4ed. Allied naval losses in the battle off Bali are one destroyer sunk, another warship damaged and five aeroplanes shot down. Four Japanese aircraft were destroyed in the naval action. American heavy bombers and divebombers attacked a Japanese fleet consisting of two cruisers, four or five destroyers and four transports, as it was approaching the southeast of Bali. The bombers made three hits on one or more cruisers and two hits on transports, while the dive-bombers hit one cruiser and one transport.

The American dive-bombers and fighters resumed the attack later and seriously damaged a Japanese cruiser. Four American aeroplanes were missing after this attack. In the third and fourth attacks American aeroplanes, which included Flying Fortresses, scored three hits on a cruiser.

The Dutch garrisons in Bali, as in the south of Sumatra, are fighting delaying actions and denying war material and supplies to the enemy. Allied bombers have attacked Japanese shipping off the Moesi River, in Sumatra, and also in Banka Strait, where at least one ship was damaged. Enemy planes have bombed Banjuwangi, the port at the eastern extremity of Java across the narrow strait from Bali. Thirty-nine civilians were killed and 15 wounded, chiefly as a result of a direct hit on an air raid shelter.