HEAVY ENEMY BARRAGE

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24206, 14 March 1944, Page 5

HEAVY ENEMY BARRAGE

EMPRESS AUGUSTA BAY

DIVE-BOMBERS SILENCE GUNS

(Special Australian Corresp., N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 10 p.m.) X SYDNEY. March 13. The Japanese during the week-end employed their heaviest artillery barrage of th'e Solomons campaign against the American beachhead at Empress Augusta Bay, on Bougainville Island. The enemy barrage followed a three day pounding of the Japanese positions during which American guns fired 35,000 rounds against enemy troop concentrations. . The Japanese had been gathering their strength for attacks against the American perimeter. The latest and most intense Japanese barrage displayed a marked improvement in the quality of the enemy gunnery. Torokina airfield was shelled, but little damage was caused. The Japanese guns were silenced when a large number of Allied dive-bombers attacked their positions. In several weeks not a single Japanese aeroplane has been seen over the Bougainville area. Earlier enemy infantry attacks against the American perimeter had been repulsed with sharp Japanese losses. The Tokyo radio claimed that in attacks beginning last Wednesday Torokina airfield had been rendered unusable for Allied aeroplanes. Cut off from further supplies, the Japanese garrisons on Bougainville Island are in a desperate position. Enemy forces from other areas of the island appear to have been moved Cowards Empress Augusta Bay, where they may be attempting to force the issue at the American beachhead.

BASES IN MARSHALLS BOMBED

LANDING ON ANOTHER ATOLL

(Rec. 9 p.m.) WASHINGTON. March 12. Four bases in the eastern Marshall Islands were bombed by United States aeroplanes on Friday, according to a Pacific Fleet communique. No fighter interception was met on any of these raids, and anti-aircraft fire was moderate. All the aeroplanes returned safely.

A small amphibious unit of the Pacific Fleet including a detachment of the 22nd Marine Regiment occupied Qotho atoll in the Marshall Islands without resistance, says another Pacific Fleet communique. The natives received the occupation, force with a ceremony which included gifts of food.

SHIPS BURN FOR THREE WEEKS

NEARLY ALL OF CREWS , PERISH (Rec. 12.20 a.m.) NEW YORK, March 13. All but nine members of the crews of a Liberty ship and a tanker perished in fires and explosions when the ships collided at sea in a dense fog and burned and detonated for three weeks. The Liberty ship was fully loaded with combustibles of the highest inflammability. including glycerine, resin, wax, oil, bales of cotton, and tons of magnesium. The tanker was carrying high octane aviation spirit. The hulk of the Liberty ship has been towed to New York. None of her welding showed any cracks, in spite of the holocaust.

GOEBBELS ESCAPES DEATH

BLOCK BUSTER STRIKES HOTEL

(Rec. 12,5 a.m.) NEW YORK. March 13. Goebbcls escaped death during the Royal Air Force attack on Berlin on February 15 by abandoning his guests in a hotel at the first sound of the air raid alarm, says a Columbia Broadcasting Service broadcast from Madrid, The hotel was wrecked by a direct hit with a block buster a few minutes alter Goebbels’ departure, killing all in the hotel except four men.

WORLD SUPPLIES OF OIL

(Rcc. 12.3 a.m.) NEW YORK. March 13. Disagreeing with warnings that world petroleum supplies are running out, speakers at the Oil and Heat Institute meeting estimated that the world’s oil resources are sufficient for normal peace-time needs for more than 1000 years.

Germans in France.—One out of every IUU Frenchmen has been arrested, and one out of every 1000 has been shot during the German occupation of France, according to estimates made by French headquarters in London. Four hundred thousand men and women have fatten arrested and 38.000 have been shot. An additional 75.000 are interned in Germany, excluding deported workers and prisoners of war,—London, March 11,

CRITICISM OF STRATEGY

ALLIED FORCES IN NEW GUINEA

REFERENCE TO NUMBER OF CASUALTIES

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

(Bee. 7 p.m.) CANBERRA. March 13. A demand for Government action to deal with alleged lack of co-ordination in the Australian Army ' Department has been made by Sir Earle Page, a member of the Commonwealth Advisory War Council. He claimed that lack of co-ordination had caused disastrous changes in the strategy of the Owen Stanley and Buna-Gona campaigns, and said that those changes largely had been responsible for the numbers of Australians and Americans killed, wounded, and disabled by tropical diseases. Sir Earle Page said that the wiping out of a single, ill-armed Japanese division, cut off from its supplies in an area under Allied air domination, had involved Australian battle casualties which were more than twice those suffered on the El Alamein front. At El Alamein the estimated Australian casualties in one of the most intense battles of the world war had been about 2700. In the Papuan fighting referred to, the joint Australian-Ameri-can losses, apart from non-fatal cases of sickness, had been nearly 10,000. "These must have been about the heaviest in any successful operation anywhere in this war,” said Sir Earle Page. "In New Guinea from August, 1942, to February, 1943, there were added to the 6212 battle casualties 25,000 cases of disease. Many of these disease casualties would have been averted if the original strategy had been followed and Japanese supplies had been cut off by naval and air bombardment. Bombing, especially night bombing, could be used to inflict malarial casualties on the enemy, by forcing his troops to expose themselves to malarial mosquitoes. “The interruption of the sea and air supply lines of troops suffering from chronic malaria would cause a heavy death-rate from blackwater fever. This policy is apparently now being followed. In the making of an Allied soldier, even senior officers realise the importance of anti-malarial discipline.”

“General Blarney and his officers have the complete confidence of the War Cabinet.” said the Minister of the Army (Mr F. M. Fords), in reply to Sir Earle Page’s criticism of Army strategy, which he described as “most unjust.” “General Blarney’s control of the Army in the time of our greatest crisis has been such that the whole nation should be grateful to him. In the face of tremendous difficulties he has carried out with distinction the task allotted to him.”

WELSH MINERS’ STRIKE

ONE-THIRD OF MEN RESUME WORK

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, March 13. The position in the Welsh coal miners’ strike is reported to be confused. Many of the 96,000 strikers in south Wales were expected to return to work to-day, but only one-third of the men resumed. The headquarters of the Ministry of Fuel in Wales reported that the position was so fluid that it could not make any estimate of the number of men who had returned. The miners’ lodges held a mass meeting yesterday morning to vote on the .recommendation from their executive council, which was submitted to a delegates’ meeting in Cardiff, urging an immediate resumption. The final result of the voting is not available, but several lodges have already decided to support the executive’s recommendation.

TALKS ON JUGOSLAVIA PLANNED

EXILED MINISTERS IN LONDON LONDON. March 12. King Peter of Jugoslavia, who arrived in London by air on Saturday, spent yesterday afternoon in London with his fiancee, Princess Alexandra of the Hellenes. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Observer” says that he has come to Britain with M. Puritch, the Prime Minister of the exiled Jugoslav Government, and M. Milicovitch, Minister of the Interior, to discuss a way out of the political impasse into which Jugoslav affairs have drifted. *

Dr. Joseph Smodlaka, Foreign Minister in the Provisional Government established in Jugoslavia under Marshal Brog-Tito, is also reported to be coming To London to present, it is believed, the views of the Tito Government on the monarchy and its relations to the active resistance movement in Jugoslavia.

ITALIAN INTERNEES RELEASED

ACTION TAKEN IN AUSTRALIA CANBERRA, March 11. Nearly all the Italian internees in Australia have been released. This has been disclosed by the Prime Minister (Mr Curtin) in a letter to the leader of the Country Party (Mr A. W. Fadden). The letter stated that unnaturalised Italians who were medically fit had been released from internment for service with the Civil Aliens Corps. Naturalised and British-born subjects and those of the unnaturalised group who were medically unfit had been returned to their home States. The conditions attached to this were that each man should accept employment arranged by the Deputy-Director of Security, and should not leave that employment without his permission.

1,874,000 DEATHS IN BENGAL NEARLY HALF FROM DISEASE CALCUTTA, March 1’ The total deaths from all causes in Bengal in 1943 numbered 1,874,000, which was 58 per cent, above the average for the last five years. Deaths from famine are not separately listen, but are included in the total. Cholera and malaria accounted for nearly half the total deaths.

BELGIAN HOSTAGES SHOT

GERMAN REPRISAL FOR SABOTAGE

(Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 12. The Germans shot 40 hostages m Brussels after a series of attacks and acts of sabotage, says the Belgian News Agency. The .first 20 were snot after an attempt to blow up a German guard house in which two German soldiers were killed. Ten other Belgians who had appealed after being sentenced to death for Communist activities, were declared by the Germans to be hostages and shot. Another 10 were shot as a reprisal for a raid against a German recruiting office.

British War Effort.—ln the fifth year of war Britain's 22.000,000-odd workers, including 7.000.000 women, of whom more than 2.500,000 are married, are contributing an average of 37 hours weekly to the war effort. At certain periods they have worked 60 and 70 hours. Only a tiny percentage have had to be compulsorily directed. —Rugby, March 12.