GENERAL BLAMEY’S REVIEW

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23848, 18 January 1943, Page 6

GENERAL BLAMEY’S REVIEW

TROOPS FLOWN IN NEW GUINEA

(Rec. 1.30 a.m.) SYDNEY. Jan. 17. “Allied troops have shown this proud Asiatic that he is an inferior creature to the product of western civilisation,” said Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Blarney, broadcasting to-night, when he reviewed the Papuan campaign. He warned Australians, however, that the Japanese would do all they could to fulfil their threat to destroy Australia.

General Blarney said that our total land battle losses were many thouands less than the Japanese, Enemy losses in sea "battles exceeded those :of the Allies. General Blamef spoke of the difficulties of the campaign, caused largely through lack of roads to supply forward troops. He said that when the Japanese were driven back over the Owen Stanley range it was impossible to build roads, so other means had to be developed for getting troops across. Brigadier-General Kenneth Walker, who was in command of the air forces in Papua flew him dbwn to Milne Bay and they decided to try to fly a battalion of A.I.F. troops to Wanigela, about 100 miles north-east along the coast from Milne Bay. This was done successfully, and a few days later a substantial American force was flown in. The Japanese did not discover the move for some time, and that gave the forces time to consolidate there. "The Japanese have now been driven into a corner from which there is little hope of escape and in which they would be gradually liquidated,” General Blarney said. “It must not be thought for a moment, however, that we are out of the wood with the Japanese,” he said. “His self-belief is colossal, his valuation of human life is small, and his resources are great.” The menace of tropical diseases such as scrub typhus and malaria was even more deadly than the Japanese, said General Blarney. Men fighting day by day could not protect themselves adequately from such insidious enemies. He concluded by paying tribute to the American forces with whom the Australian troops were working in a close-knit brotherhood.