WATCHED NAVAL BATTLES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 60, 4 December 1942, Page 6

WATCHED NAVAL BATTLES

Dramatic Scenes In Solomons OBSERVER ON HIGH Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, December 3. Naval clashes in the Solomons area last month were witnessed by William Hippie, a war correspondent with the United States forces, who was on Tulagi Island. He is on a brief visit ’to New Zealand. Mr. Hippie, who is attached to the Associated Press service supplying 1300 newspapers in America, is probably the first reporter to have had a bird’s-eye view of a full-scale naval battle, albeit both actions, which he witnessed in three . days, took place for the most part in the pitch-black darkness of the tropics. In the first battle, of November 13, said Mr. Hippie, the opposing forces were closely engaged in the vicinity of Tulagi and Guadalcanal for an hour. The Japanese fleet included battleships, and the flash and thunder of the broadsides were interminable during the main action.

Ships which were badly hit sometimes emerged from the darkness in the blinding flash of an explosion, whicli sent up star shells in all directions, and sometimes they entered the picture as a dull red glow as internal fires spread in the hull and quickly increased in intensity. However sudden or slow, the end of the stricken ships was the same, and their fate was made all the more certain by a rain of tracer bullets which denoted the brooding presence of aircraft! It was unthinkable, said Mr. Hippie, that anyone could survive such an experience. Three or four enemy ships blew up after the main action had been broken off just as dawn came over the scene, and the sun revealed a Japanese battleship lying off Savo Island in Tulagi roadstead, trying to limp.away. , She had begun to move out to the open sea at about ’two knots when American bombers came over, and she was soon abandoned, burning. , Jap Divisions’ Fate.

Two nights later there was another major conflict in which battleships were used on both sides. The enemy losses on this occasion included four transports, which were . beached on the north-west shore of Guadalcanal. They tried desperately to get the men and equipment ashore, but none of the equipment reached land an dthe casualties among the troops—estimated at from two to three divisions strong—were terrific as planes roared over them constantly.

Mr. Hippie formed one of the crew of a seaplane which taxied over the oilcovered waters in a search for survivors, who were ferried to a ship. Most of the men in the water were suffering from exposure and burns. A few had gunshot wounds, and the coating of oil made them look ghastly. Many of the Japanese soldiers and sailors refused to be picked up and dived like dueks under the surface when the plane came near. They preferred death to capture, and that sentiment was general. “The situation in general looks pretty good,” said Mr. Hippie in conclusion.