NEW GUINEA RESULTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 270, 10 August 1943, Page 5

NEW GUINEA RESULTS

Offensive By Patrols (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) . SYDNEY, August 8. The Japanese forces defending Salamaua have been compelled to abandon their outer defences and fall back to their inner defence line. A general advance of almost 10 miles bus been made by American and Australian forces in the past month’s land fighting. The gains have been made by Allied troops whose numbers at first appeared to 'be utterly inadequate to their task. Discussing the formless nature of this New -Guinea land fighting, an Australian war correspondent says: “Warfare in this area is not a matter of fixed or planned frontal attacks, but of a series of seemingly minor patrol actions knitted .in a pattern which does not become clear except by what is achieved in the long run. “The object of every patrol is to find a weak spot in the enemy’s line, to infiltrate, then take and hold it and proceed to the next weak spot and deal nith it in the same manner. When the shooting begins it is at close range. “We Jo not know the Japanese defences, perhaps, till we are within five yards of them. The whole secret of the steady Allied advance is control of communications and tracks. Cut the enemy’s track and he must fall back.” Supplies are all important in this type of warfare. Those for the Allied ground forces are parachuted from planes on to special dropping grounds, and transported from these to the front by carriers. The Allied air forces nt the same time maintain a relentless pounding of the enemy’s supply lines, concentrating on his barge transport system and dumps. The success of these operations has been an important contributory factor to the Allied gains of the past month.