ENCIRCLING MOVE SEALED JAPS' DOOM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 36, 12 February 1943, Page 3

ENCIRCLING MOVE SEALED JAPS' DOOM

ARMY AiaiHIIATED

Campaign Of Destruction On Guadalcanar N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright Rec. noon. NEW YORK, Feb. 11. "Six months and two days after the American invasion the Japanese have been eliminated from Guadalcanar. The Japanese Seventeenth Army has been totally defeated and destroyed, thus ending the bitter struggle for contuol of this strategic Solomon Islands air base." An American war correspondent, in a delayed dispatch from the island, tells the story of the final fighting which ended organised enemy opposition. Two United States forces, one driving from the east and the other from the west, converged late on Tuesday at Tenamba River, near the Japanese headquarters on Cape Esperance, closing the nine miles which separated them the day previously. They encountered some opposition, but the final defeat was never in doubt. General Patch said it was extremely difficult to count the number of enemy dead because of the difficulty of finding the bodies. However, it is estimated that 20,000 Japanese have been killed in land action on Guadalcanar since the Americans landed. A few Japanese, mostly reserve and supply troops, are believed to be still hiding in the island's jungle and hills, but little difficulty is expected in s mopping up these remnants. • Japanese Outwitted "This is a campaign of destruction by ground forces supported by powerful artillery," declared General Patch. "It was a matter of digging them out of jungles and hills—man against man. Victory came as the result of a tremendous encircling movement over extremely difficult terrain which the enemy did not think the Americans could cross." The Japanese apparently expected the total drive from the east along the coast and then inland. After the capture of Mount Austen, however, which was heroically taken in a bitter battle, the army forces drove to the south-west in an encircling movement which was begun on January 10. This was the beginning of the end for the Japanese. The Americans then pushed over hills, jungle and ravines and captured Kokumbona on January 24. Kokumbona is on the coast where the coastline turns north-west to Cape Esperance. It was the principal enemy supply and bivouac area. The capture of Kokumbona sealed the doom of the Japanese and "afterwards organised resistance was sporadic.