CAMPAIGN IN NEW GUINEA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24983, 18 September 1946, Page 4

CAMPAIGN IN NEW GUINEA

AUSTRALIAN EFFORT REVIEWED

A brief account of the New Guinea campaign was given by Mr A. R. Cutler, High Commissioner for Australia, at the annual meeting of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last evening. Mr Cutler, who said he had not been in New Guinea himself, recounted friends’ accounts of the extreme difficulties of conditions, and discussed mainly the . meeting of the three-pronged Japanese thrust countered by the Australians near Port Moresby and at Milne Bay, and by the Americans in the Coral Sea* Reviewing Australia’s unpreparedness for the rapid Japanese thrust south, Mr Cutler said it was not generally realised that the actual fighting in Papua had fallen almost entirely on the Australians. The Australian Government had had to face an awkward decision preparing for possiljje eventualities. There had been no hope of the United Kingdom coming to her aid, and help from the United States would have been too slow in arriving. Australia had therefore been forced to recall two of the three divisions from the Middle East, and though it might have appeared a bad thing from the overseas publicity viewpoint, it was inevitable if a springboard was to, be held for a future counter-attack.' Discussing features of the campaign, he said that’the Australians had Inflicted on the Japanese at Milne Bay their first land defeat of the war. and though it was perhaps hot as heavy as the fighting at Alameln, or as spectacular as Tobruk, the Milne Bay action was one of pride to Australia to-day.

Mr Cutler added that Australian casualties against the Japanese, including the Malayan campaign, were 59,363 dead, wounded, missing, and prisoners of war.