QUICKENED TEMPO

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 21, 26 January 1943, Page 5

QUICKENED TEMPO

ATTACKS ON ENEMY FROM THE AIR

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 25. The air war throughout the SouthWest Pacific is maintaining its quickened tempo. For the sixth time in eight days Rabaul has been attacked, airfields being the targets for Flying Fortresses yesterday. Large fires were burning when the bombers turned for home. For the first time in several months, General Mac Arthur's communique today makes ho reference to land fighting, and is devoted exclusively to the air operations. No further mention is made of the Japanese shipping concentration at Rabaul, where Allied bombers sank or crippled vessels aggregating 70,000 tons during the past week. Possible hits are claimed today for a night reconnaissance bomber which attacked a Japanese vessel in the Solomons Sea (between New Britain and the northern Solomons). Lac and Salamaua, the important Japanese bases on the coast of north New

Guinea, have bfeen raided daily during the past 10 days, and further west along the coastline Madang has been raided 11 times and Finschhafen nine times in 15 days. Our bombers again attacked targets on Timor in the Arafura Sea area, where the Japanese are increasingly active in developing bases and airfields. No enemy air offensive has been reported for the past 24 hours. HUNT FOR JAP REFUGEES. Allied land patrols are known to be hunting down small bands of enemy refugees in the sago swamps between Sanananda and Gona. The booty captured recently, it is revealed, included a powerful radio transmitter which was in perfect condition, its range enabling messages to be sent direct to Tokio. The transmitter was taken by the Australian troops who penetrated through chest-deep swamps and thick jungle in the surprise move which paved the way for the collapse of Sanananda. • All along the coast Allied patrols have found substantial enemy food supplies, but most of the dumps were out of reach of the beleagured garrison.

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 25. "From a long-term view, the war picture for the Allies in the Pacific shows many hopeful features. However, Australia and New Zealand have not to concern themselves immediately with long-rarige policy, but with checking and repulsing the implacable and swarming foe. For these tasks all the aid which the United Nations is able to send to this theatre will be needed." This comment on the war in the Pacific is made today by the "Sydney Morning Herald" in an editorial review of the Papuan campaign, which has now been successfully concluded. "However little the Japanese may relish the taste of defeat, they are not likely to regard the abortive invasion of Papua as a wasted enterprise," says the "Herald." "Their losses have been far greater than ours, but these must be measured in relation to their present vast preponderance of trained soldiery. Papua is merely a geographical designation and hot a military entity, and the Japanese still hold Lac, Salamaua, and other bases to the north on the great island of New Guinea. At these points they have been steadily reinforcing while their Buna-Gona troops were fighting a de^ laying action to the last man. "Australians should realise the continuing strength of the enemy's position in the great arc > extending round the north of this country. Particularly in the north-east, the Japanese are again mustering great strength in men, planes, and ships. From Rabaul and its subsidiary bases enemy aircraft particularly are operating with renewed and menacing vigour." In the meantime, the first benefit of Japanese eviction fx-om Papua is alI ready becoming apparent. Native rubber tappers who have been serving as carriers for the Allied forces are goi ing back to their peacetime jobs. Papua normally produces 1,500,0001b of raw rubber annually, and most of the larger, plantations expect to maintain their production for the present season at this level. The Allied troops, who are now resting after the strenuous Papuan campaign, are reported by war correspondents to be convinced that the physical obstacles ahead in New Guinea cannot possibly be worse than those they have already encountered and overcome.

Such of the cable news on this page fts is so headed has appeared in "The Times" and is cabled to Australia and New Zealatnd by special permission. It should be understood that the opinions are not those of "The Times" unless expressly stated to be so. By special arrangement, Reuters world service, in addition to other special sources of information. Is used in the compilation of the overseas intelligence published in this issue, and all rights therein in Australia and New Zealand are mmcd.