SOLDIERS FOUND IN NEW GUINEA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27591, 23 February 1955, Page 13

SOLDIERS FOUND IN NEW GUINEA

Japanese Survivors Of War (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) PORT MORESBY, February 22. Four Japanese soldiers have been round in bush country in Dutch New Guinea, an Administration spokesman said this morning. The Dutch authorities have asked roe Administration to help get the soldiers back to Japan. .They 1: ve been living in the bush El! l£e the war ended 10 years ago. The soldiers will be flown from the capital, Hollandier, to Wewak, on Thursday. They will then join the Japanese War Graves Mission ship, the Mary, which is now in New Guinea. Japanese sources have often claimed roat soldiers may still be in New Guinea jungles, but local authorities have always scotched the suggestion as impossible. They believe it is impossible for any Japanese to be at large m Australian New Guinea.

Earlier official reports had said that Communist war vessels were heading towards Nanchisan Island and that Nationalist planes were rushing out to attack them.

The United Press dispatch quoted Nationalist sources as saying that the invasion fleet consisted of a score of gunboats and “many” motorised junks laden with troops.

The Nationalist Air Force announced today that four waves of heavy Nationalist bombers round midnight sank three Communist vessels and damaged four others near the Taishan Islands, 100 miles north of Formosa, as they continued their round-the-clock attack on Communist ships and military targets off the mainland coast.

The Communist war vessels which had been heading toward Nanchishan Island, held by the Nationalists, apparently changed their course today, and their expected assault on the island did not materialise, an American Associated Press correspondent reported from Taipeh. The Communists were diverted into mainland harbours, the dispatch said. Official reports had said the Communists were heading toward Nanchishan and that Nationalist warships and planes were rushing to engage them.

Up to late afternoon there were no reports of a clash, but the danger remained. officials reported. Nanchishan, 120 miles north of Formosa, is now Marshal Chiang Kaishek’s northernmost island outpost. A Communist attack there was predicted to coincide with the opening of the South-East Asia Treaty conference at Bangkok. The United Press said that a United States Air Force official spokesman would neither confirm nor deny a Nationalist report that the Communists actually were invading Nanchishan, saying only that the Air Force “could not comment.”