CAUTIOUS ADVANCE IN STANLEY RANGES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 236, 6 October 1942, Page 3

CAUTIOUS ADVANCE IN STANLEY RANGES

NEARING HELL'S GAP

Stubborn Stand By Japs.

Expected Daily

Special Australian Correspondent United Press Association—Copyright SYDNEY, Oct. 5. Forward detachments of Australian troops are beyond the entrance to Hell's Gap, which crosses the highest point, at 6000 feet, in the Owen Stanley Range. Our advance is proceeding cautiously in anticipation of encountering a stubborn stand by the Japanese. If this does not eventuate within the next 48 hours it is almost certain our troops will be able to drive down the steep northern slopes of the mountains to Kokoda without opposition. The immediate Australian objective is Kagi, about six miles beyond Efogi, and the last village south of the range's highest point. The latest communique from General MacArthur's headquarters says our drive still continues and Allied and Kittyhawk fighters are strafing and harrying key points along the enemy's line of retreat. If the Japanese do not give battle in the Kagi-Mvola sector it is increasingly felt that they are likely to withdraw to the rolling country well beyond the range, on the northern side of the Kumusi River bridge at Wairopi, the fatal bottleneck in the enemy supply line.

The Australian lines of supply might then be so attenuated that our forces would be unable to push the enemy further back. However, since General Mac Arthur's Headquarters earlier described the advance as a limited offensive, it seems possible that the present drive is intended to do no more than dispossess the ■Japanese of the range and reoecupy our previous defensive positions, with our forward posts near Kokoda and our main line along the summit of the range.

A General Headquarters spokesman to-day, in a cautious appraisal of the situation, said isolated groups of Japanese had offered slight resistance to our advance, but so far the enemy had made no organised attempt to fight a rearguard action. The Australian forces continued to move carefully to avoid ambushes, with units deployed to protect their flanks.

The war correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald says if the Japanese do not make their stand in the present area of the Australian advance they are likely to withdraw altogether from the Buna area. But he points out that such an evacuation after that at Milne Bay would be a great loss of face.

Too much speculation at this stage on the reasons for the withdrawal, Which has evidently been made at a faster rate than the enemy can be pursued, would not be prudent. Some observers, however, now suggest that the Japanese are finding New Guinea and the Solomons campaigns too much to handle at the same time and they may temporarily abandon the former in order to concentrate all their strength against the American-held islands of the south-eastern Solomons.

Supporting this theory, the war correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that the reason for the enemy's possible abandonment of the Owen Stanley front may be traced as far back as the last week in August, when our heavy destruction of tighter planes on the ground at Buna airfield proved the impracticability of their trying to hold that area as a counter base to Port Moresby.

The present Japanese withdrawal must result in heavier concentrations of enemy troops and supplies in northern Papua, thus increasing their vulnerability to unceasing Allied air attacks—unless Japan can speedily muster sufficient planes for their protection.