NEW AMERICAN BASE SET UP IN ALEUTIANS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1942, Page 3

NEW AMERICAN BASE SET UP IN ALEUTIANS

ONE HOUR FROM JAPS

Most Important Move In

North Pacific

United Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. NEW YORK, Oct. 4.

The establishment of bases in the Andreanof Islands, in the Aleutiaps. enables the United States to launch attacks on nearby Japanese positions at Kiska, also to forestall an enemy attempt to steal a further march northward says the New York Herald-Tribune Washington correspondent. The manoeuvre is the most important American move in the North Pacific .since the outbreak of uar - It establishes firmly the American hold on the majority of the Aleutian Islands, stretching close to Kamchatka and Siberia.

The fact that the army is using long-range bombers from'the newlv established airfields indicates that the United States intends to strike farther than the Japanese footholds in the Aleutians, possibly aiming at the Japanese Kurile Island chain near Japan itself.

The occupation of the Andreanofs was accomplished without opposition or loss of life, according to the Associated Press correspondent with the expedition, which constituted the largest convoy of American ships ever to sail in the North Pacific. The convoy, a motley collection of heavy warships, destroyers, transports, power barges, converted yachts, four-masted codfish, and schooners, proceeded at a snail's pace, offering the Japanese a splendid target, of which they were not aware or were afraid to tackle.

Aerodromes Already Operating

United States Army troops, covered and supported by navai units, recently occupied positions in the Andreanof group of the Aleutian Islands without encountering enemy opposition, says a United States Navy communique. Army aircraft, including Consoiidateds, Flying Fortresses. Lockheeds. Airacobras and Curtisses, are now operating from air fields on these islands.

The Andreanof group is in the middle of the Aleutians and only an hour by air from Kiska.

An enemy cargo ship which was attacked on September 28 north-west of Kiska was again bombed and strafed later in the dav. No opposition was encountered and the ship appeared to be abandoned.

In spite of considerable anti-air-craft fire, Consolidateds bombed enemy ships in Kiska harbour on September 30 and scored two hits on a transport, which was set on fire. They also bombed and set on fire a camp area. All the planes returned.

STUDENTS' CRIME

GRUDGE AGAINST MASTER Rec. 9.30 a.m. NEW YORK. Oct. 4. Two former students harbouring an old classroom grudge shot and killed Irwin Goodman, mathematics teacher, in a corridor at Brooklyn Junior High School. Joseph Nunziata, aged 19, and Neil Simonelli. aged 16, fled from the schoolhouse and later confessed to the police that their grudge was rekindled when Goodman upbraided them for smoking in the washroom on a visit to the school.

Telling the story with as little concern as if they had hit a baseball through a schoolhouse window, the youths revealed a grim partnership in the shooting. Simonelli pulled the trigger first, but the gun misfired. Nunziata said: "I got impatient and I grabbed the gun and fired." The bullet struck the teacher in the back in view of the horrified students.

When the detectives brought the culprits to the schoolhouse to re-en-act the crime, 500 angry students gathered in the schoolyard shouting "get those rats!" They tried to storm the building, but were restrained by the police, teachers and district air raid wardens.

The pupils described Goodman as the most popular teacher in the school. They said he was "the only teacher who ever made mathematics fun."