NASSAU BAY LANDING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 162, 10 July 1943, Page 5

NASSAU BAY LANDING

Americans And Australians Fought Side By Side N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 1 p.m. SIDNEY, this day. Delayed dispatche's from the Pacific war zone give details of the earlier sea and land successes won by the Allied forces. It is revealed that the Australians fought side by side with the Americans throughout 24 hours of the skirmishing to beat back the Japanese who attacked the United States force which landed at Nassau Bay, in Northern New Guinea, last week.

Some of the Japanese tied themselves in trees and tried to snipe the Allied troops. The enemy soldiers were armed with machine-guns, mortars, grenades and automatic rifles.

Three separate actions took place. The first began about 9.15 on the morning of the landing. This was a small-scale skirmish which lasted until midday. The second, a similar action, continued from mid-afternoon until dusk. Just after this Japanese attack had been broken intelligence reported the main enemy force was . moving to the attack. Fighting began at sundown and lasted until eight o'clock in the morning. At dawn the action was brisk, but the Japanese then broke and ran. The enemy troops were stated to be well equipped, clothed and provisioned. Some wore khaki, but most wore jungle-green uniforms. "War correspondents in the Solo- ■ mons give graphic descriptions of the I scene in Kula Gulf following the de-: struction of the Japanese naval forcer. in the gulf last Monday. It is now-, revealed that supply vessels accompanied the enemy warships, although there are no reports of these being involved in the fighting. "Acres of floating wreckage, Japanese sailors clinging to rafts and spars, and great oil patches where the enemy vessels sank were sighted in the gulf by Allied planes," writes an Australian correspondent. "These planes blasted - to scrap-iron a beached Japanese ' destroyer. Nearby was the sodden , . hulk of a Japanese cruiser, its bow. projecting from the water. Around -, it Japanese survivors clung likeflies to the wreckage." Many enemy sailors picked up were made prisoner.