SLOW PROGRESS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 241, 12 October 1942, Page 3

SLOW PROGRESS

OWEN STANLEY RANGE

No Indication Of Large Enemy Concentrations Special Australian Correspondent t nited Press Association—Copyright SYDNEY, Oct. 11. Advance Australian troops have been skirmishing with Japanese patrols in central Papua. Encounters have occurred in the Myola-Temple-ton's Crossing area of the Owen Stanley Range, just north of Hell's Gap.

The communique issued to-day from General MacArthui's Headquarters, however, says no further contact has occurred with the enemy in the past 24 hours. The Australians' New Guinea drive has now crossed the summit of the range. M3'ola is 10 miles beyond Hell's Gap and only ,15 miles from the Japanese-held airfield at Kokoda, at the northern foothills of the range.

War correspondents say the Australian advance is still progressing slowly. Enemy patrol activity at the summit of the range was on a small scale and according to a headquarters' spokesman had no special significance.

This was the only organised Japanese activity encountered in 11 days—since the opposing forces clashed at loribaiwa, the first position reoccupied by the Australians in their drive across the range. No reports have been received of large enemy concentrations. Along the Kokoda trail Allied aircraft continue to attack "targets of opportunity," but the presence of enemy personnel has not been revealed.

At the foot of the steep northern slopes of the range the Japanese earlier constructed fortifications near Kokoda. There is no indication that the Australians have yet begun the descent of these slopes. Nineteen miles north of Kokoda, where the vvairopi bridge crosses the swiftflowing Kumusi River, is increasingly nominated by war commentators as the most favourable and nkeU point for any Japanese stand No further Allied air attacks have Oeen made on this repeatedly damaged .indge. which according to the New Guinea correspondent of the New "York Times, Byron Darn ton, earlier gained too great a reputation lor durability because of the rapidity and the persistence with which it was repaired by Japanese engineering units.

Australian Commando Tactics

Stories of almost incredible hardships along the precipitous tracks of tne New Guinea mountains are told py sick and wounded troops returning to Australia. They speak of nights spent in the open lying in the mud under drenching rain, of the devotion of the natives, and of the stubborn bravery of Japanese soldiers, some of whom are more than six ieet tall.

The properly-trained Australian Commando is superior to the Japanese, claim these returned soldiers. I hey base this claim on the fact that. Australian casualties in a series of harassing raids on enemy bases at Lae and Salamaua have been practice |Iy nil. Most Australian raids in this area were made at night. "We would watch an enemv post for days/' one soldier explained. "We would learn the strength of the enemy force asd its routine. Each of our men would be given a certain job to do and then we would hop in and clean the place up and disappear in the jungle."

""iou have to kill the Japanese to stop, them," said another man. "You can wound them severely, but they, still keep coming, even if thev can only crawl, shooting all the time."

"Before a peculiar hand grenade used by the Japanese in New Guinea is ready the thrower has to blow into it," says a wounded Australian ,soldier now back from the fighting iin the Owen Stanley Range. "The Japanese thought our grenades worked on the same principle. One day we saw an enemy party with some -of our grenades they had captured. A Japanese soldier removed the pin and began to blow into the grenade. It blew him to pieces."