NEW GUINEA FIGHTING

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23918, 9 April 1943, Page 5

NEW GUINEA FIGHTING

TRAIL FROM WAU TO MUBO

HARDSHIPS ENDURED BY AUSTRALIANS

(Special Australian Corresp., N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 9 p.m.) SYDNEY, April 3. During the Papuan campaign a great deal was heard of the arduous nature of the war across the Owen Stanley ranges. Little, however, has been told of the rigours of the Mubo campaign, where the Australians continue to press * relentlessly against the distant island • outpost positions of the Japanese northern New Guinea supply bases at Salamaua and Lae. Almost three months have gone by since this campagin began with the heavy defeat of Japanese forces attempting to capture the Allied aerodrome at Wau. In the fighting which has followed along the trail from Wau to Mubo, the Australian troops have endured all the hardships of the Owen Stanley trail, except that there have been fewer large-scale clashes.

“Physically this country is so similar to the Kokoda trail that any part of either zone could be interchanged without the soldiers trudging through the mud even noticing it,” writes a war correspondent. “Scrub overhangs the sodden track, and there is the everpresent menace of Japanese snipers hiding in the trees. Both sides have made many ambushes, but the relative successes gained are indicated by the steady advance of the Australians. “A section of the Wau-Mubo trail leads round a sheer mountain side with a drop of 200 feet into a ravine below. In many places the troops have to scramble up the steeper pinches on all fours. Landslides are a continuing danger. Incessant ram, turning the track into a quagmire, has made it necessary for the level sections to be corduroyed. “The hardships endured by the men in the fighting here equal those of the Owen Stanley ranges. Sixteen native carriers are normally allotted to attend each wounded soldier. Eight men wounded in one patrol engagement required 216 natives to transport them to an advanced field hospital. The wounded had to be passed from hand to hand over the most difficult parts of the trail. Field aid posts in this area are long grass huts. Wood must be dried by a fire before it will burn. The beds are blankets secured to wooden frames by jungle vines. “A medical officer just returned from the forward areas states that the Australian soldiers have four enemies to fight before they meet the Japanese. They are the arduous nature of the country, the cold and the wet, with men having to wear the same mudcaked clothing -for days on end, the scrub, and typnus and malaria, which some men have contracted in other areas but which often breaks out again when the troops (undergo severe hardships and the nervous strain of war in the ‘ambush’ country. However, the Australians in this area have one great advantage over those who took part in the early Owen Stanley fighting. Their diet is immeasurably better.' An improved ration has been issued in a tin containing three balanced meals. The food consists of dehydrated meat, vegetables, wholemeal biscuits, dried fruits, salt, sugar, chewing-gum, tea, and chocolate."

CHINESE ATTACK ON YANGTSE FRONT

FOOD FOR U.S. FORCES

LABOUR POLICY IN AUSTRALIA

CRITICISM

AUSTRALIAN WHEAT SURPLUS

SUCCESSFUL RAID IN CHEKIANG

(Rec. 8 p.m.) CHUNGKING, April 7. The Chinese again attacked the Japanese column which crossed the Yangtse near Shasi, says a Chinese communique. Many of the enemy troops were mopped up and the remainder encircled. The Chinese successfully raided an enemy position west of Kinhwa, in Chekiang Province, and killed 100 Japanese.

N.Z. AND AUSTRALIAN SUPPLIES (Rec. 1 a.m.) WASHINGTON, April 8. Australia and New Zealand will supply the American forces in 1943 with five times the quantity of vegetables, meat, and other foods supplied in 1942 under reciprocal lend-lease, states the American Office of War Information. On a population basis both countries contributed nearly 91b of fruits and vegetables a head in 1042, compared with United States shipments of similar foods to all areas of 41b a head.

OPPOSITION LEADER’S

POST-WAR PLANNING AND SOCIALISATION

(Rec. 7 p.m.) MELBOURNE, April 8. “No single party can win this war,” said the Leader of the Federal Opposition (Mr A. W. Fadden), reiterating his appeal for an Australain National Government. Addressing the Country Party conference, Mr Fadden said that unless Labour were defeated at the coming elections it would have a mandate from the people to proceed with its policy of socialisation. This would mean the ultimate destruction of the economic structure of the nation and would have disastrous effects on postwar planning. "The next elections will be the most momentous in Australia’s history,” added Mr Fadden. “From the viewpoints of our future economic stability, our ability to wage 100 per cent, war in association with our Allies, and of placing the nation on a sound post-war footing, there are dangerous men iij the present Labour Ministry. No matter how frequently it is denied, there is the strongest evidence that Labour is using the .war to implement planks in Labour’s policy which can have no place in a nation at war.

■ “The Government has no mandate for socialisation, but at the coming elections the people will be invited to accept it as a basis for post-war reconstruction. Private enterprise must be defended as an essential condition of material progress. It must not be suppressed and it must be freed from doctrinaire socialistic restriction and regulation.”

GROWERS URGE NEED FOR EXPORT (Rec. 7 p.m.) CANBERRA. April 8. Australia’s accumulated wheat surplus totals 215,000,000 bushels. This figure was given to the Prime Minister (Mr J. Curtin) by a wheatgrowers’ deputation. The deputation asked Mr Curtin to point out to Britain that such a huge surplus was a serious menace to Australia’s economy. There was urgent need for the export of 100,000,000 bushels this year. Mr Curtin replied that the export of wheat was a tremendous problem, because of the shipping shortage.