PHILIPPINES BATTLE

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24371, 25 September 1944, Page 5

PHILIPPINES BATTLE

JAPANESE MAKING PREPARATIONS MORE MUNITIONS AND TROOPS (Special Australian Corresp., N.2P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY, Sept. 24. The Japanese are rushing munitions and reinforcements to the Philippines, according to the Tokyo radio. The radio claims that Japan now has superior numerical strength in the Philippines and is making great efforts to increase her garrison? supply of war equipment. ' . . . . “The time for decisive battle Is rapidly approaching,” says the Tokyo radio. “Munitions are being rushed to the Philippines to guarantee that the Japanese lorces there will not make iutile the heroic death met by many Japanese warriors on small Pacific islands before the overwhelming material odds of the enemy." The broadcast claimed that the Americans had moved three or four powerful naval task forces into the Philippines area. The components included the new drcraft carriers Bunker’s Hill. Enterprise, Lexington, and Hornet, and many converted carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Week-end communiques from General MacArthur’s Headquarters reveal that Catalina flying-boats of the Southwest Pacific Command made extensive day and night raids on the sbuthern Philippines during last week. They sank or seriously damaged a 3000-ton freighter-transport, a 2000-ton merchantman, a 1000-ton merchantman, ft tanker, and 17 smaller vessels. The Catalinas made the most northerly attack yet reported from this area operating over Bohol Island, 50 miles north-west of Mindanao, the. most southern of the Philippine Islands. Carrier and land-based aeroplane* are maintaining the neutralisation of the Halmahera area, where the Amen- , can forces on Morotai Island are with- \ in 300 miles of the Philippines. They completed the destruction of eight unserviceable aircraft, probably destroyed four, and damaged many others at the Galela and Miti aerodromes. . The fact that Allied aircraft-carriers have been able to operate near Halmahera without provoking any enemy air reaction indicates how effectively the Japanese aerodromes have been neutralised. Allied light naval patrols operating in Halmahera waters sank five supplyladen barges. .. Mopping up operations we continuing in both British and Dutch New Guinea, where remnants of two Jap- ■ anese armies are being hunted down. To-day’s south-west Pacific communique reports that'B3s Japanese were killed and 200 taken .prisoner in recent patrol dashes, while 100 friendly nationals had been released from the enemy. WITHDRAWAL IN GREECE MOVES BY GERMAN FORCES MUCH TERRITORY LIBERATED LONDON, Sept 3S. A report from New York says (that a considerable part of the. Greek mam- ~ land and several important lonian and Aegean islands have been liberated and placed under the, .authority either of local representatives of the Papandreou Government in Italy or- patriot, bands. •, . ■ According to the Cairo correspon- * dent of the “New York Times'’ the liberation followed a combination of , • German withdrawals and guerrilla as-, saults. The liberated areas include . most of southern and eastern JPel<roon r nesus, large sections of; Epirus, Eastern Crete and the islands of Chios and . Mytilene. - . ,■ , ‘ In addition the Germans largely have , vacated Lemnos and Corfu Islands and are steadily evacuating Crete and Rhodes by air and sea. However, they are maintaining skeleton forces in the Cyclades islands, f ~ The Germans have virtually evacu- . ated the whole of the Greek west coast, according to reliable reports from Cairo. The only remaining. German , , concentration Janma. .The Germans are trying to move all tram-, port to northern Greece. ‘ Reuter’s correspondent in' Cairo says that it is reliably’ reported that, the Germans have .evacuated the greater part of Peloponnesus. German movement from, southern to. . northern Greece is, continuing, . The Germans are .also moving the garrison, in Crete from east to west, - , The dissolution of German rule, in Greece has been carried several steps further, according to a British-Official Wireless message. The Greek authorities in London announce that guerrillas have occupied Kastoria, 25 miles east of the Albanian town, of Koritra. • The Germans withdrawing from th« Aegean Islands, especially Crete, are, passing through Athens ' and leaving immediately for the north, ■ The Ipiilah Islands are being liberated one altar another. The Germans have evacuated Zante and Cephalonia. Greek paratroops have landed on Chios and Mytilene. ’ r j The evacuation of Rhodes .and. Crete continues, with the Germans using Junkers 52’s to transport their '. personnel to the mainland. The Greek islands cleared of the Germans include , Chios and’ Mitylene. in the Aegean Sea, and Cephalonia and Zante, in the lonian Sea. - . Guerrillas in Greece have been active in ambushing road cbnvoys. They also blew up a German troop train in Thessaly, the train disappearing Into the Pinios river after exploding. The Germans, carrying out reprisals in Crete, executed more than 500 persons. -.More than 2000 families, numbering' some 10,000 persons, have been rendered homeless. Royal Air Force medium bombers and heavy bombers on Thursday attacked Salonika in an effort to cripple German attempts to evacuate men and supplies from the Aegean Islands, says the Exchange Telegraph correspondent in Rome. The enemy is believed to be trying to sneak through the is l antis, using Salonika as one of the principal bases for this traffic. The bombers left the quays and port installations a mass of smoke and flame. CONTROL OF GREEK TERRITORY E.A.M. ORGANISATION AND BULGARIANS (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) LONDON, Sept 23. Reuter’s Sofia correspondent in a delayed dispatch says that the Bulgarian Government and the Greek E.A.M. organisation have concluded an agreement under which E.A.M. takes over the administration of Thrace and Macedonia and the Bulgarian army remains to help the population and the new authorities and carry on against the Germans who are still on Macedonian soil. NOTED PHYSICIAN’S DEATH (Rec. 12.5 a.m.) LONDON, Sept.'24. The death has occurred of Sir Humphry Davy Rolleston, a vice-president of the British Medical Association. He attended King George V during His Majesty’s illness in 1928. During the Great War he served in the Royal Navy with the rank of surgeon rearadmiral. British and Canadian Wounded.—British and Canadian wounded brought to the United Kingdom since D Day number 23,687.—L0nd0n, September 22.