MORE JAP. PLANES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 80, 5 April 1943, Page 3

MORE JAP. PLANES

STRENGTH IN PACIFIC N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent SYDNEY, April 4. Allied airmen report that the enemy's plane strength at operational bases along their island arc has doubled since the Papuan campaign ended in January. "Concentrations at Japanese bases in the New Britain-New Ireland area, as well as in New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, are becoming stronger daily," says Harold Guard, correspondent- for the New York World Telegram at General Mac Arthur's Headquarters. He quotes Allied air officers as saying that Allied bomber and long-range fighter strength is insufficient to prevent the Japanese from strengthening their bases which ring Northern Australia. Australian ai'-men recently returned from Britain told Mr. Guard that the best corrective would be British Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster bombers. These carry huge bomb loads and are easier to handle at low levels than American heavy bombers, which are built for high flying. Reports from Guadalcanar say that the latest Japanese air attacks on the Henderson field were the heaviest since the American forces won the battle for the island. Recently the enemy has been employing increasingly strong forces against this objective. A Washington report says the Secretary of the Navy, Colonel W. F. Knox, told a Press conference that the latest attack was made by 30 to 40 Japanese planes and confirmed the American knowledge that the enemy had been building up air strength in the area for some time.