JAP. SHIP SUNK

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 109, 10 May 1943, Page 4

JAP. SHIP SUNK

FILLED WITH TROOPS Allied Planes Also Destroy Cargo Vessel N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec.2.30 p.m. SYDNEY, this day. Several hundred Japanese troops were crammed on a small enemytransport which was sunk by Allied planes off Madang, the enemy supply port on the northern New Guinea coast, on Saturday. A small cargo vessel, also sunk, carried a deck cargo of motor vehicles. Two ships used thick weather screen to reach Madang. R.A.A.F. Beaufighters and American Mitchell bombers, protected by Lightning fighters, attacked the ships. "I've never seen such a mass of troops as there were on the transport," said a Beaufighter pilot. "They were crammed everywhere, unable to move, and just had to take the fire we pumped into them. We strafed the ship from end to end repeatedly." ~^^rrnrvTU

Three direct hits by 5001b bombs from the Mitchells almost blew the transport out of the water. The ship heeled over and sank, throwing the troops who survived the fighter attack into the water.

Madang also had its biggest raid of the war on Friday morning, when 21 tons of bombs were dropped.

Reporting. Saturday's attack the communique to-day adds: "Thirteen or more enemy fighters were intercepted, one being shot down and two damaged in aerial combat. Another fighter caught on the ground was destroyed by strafing. Enemy occupied villages along the coast were bombed and strafed on the homeward flight." In Friday's raid on Madang no fighter interception was encountered, but there was intense antiaircraft fire.