UNDER SHELLFIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1943, Page 5

UNDER SHELLFIRE

SALAMAUA GARRISON

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 3. Allied artillery is now pounding the Japanese garrison at Salamaua, in northern New Guinea, where shells yesterday destroyed aircraft caught on the ground. Our gunfire also wrecked 60 feet of a bridge over the Francisco River.

This is revealed in General MacArthur's latest communique, which reports intensified air activity over the entire South-west Pacific area.

The shelling of Salamaua and its airfield, probably by 105-millimetre howitzers, has been going on for several days. Four formations of Liberators contributed to the battering of the place, dropping 84 tons of bombs on the ground defences. "When 14 Zeros gave battle to an equal number of Lockheed Lightnings which were protecting our Liberators, they suffered one of the most complete aerial routs of the Pacific war. Eleven Zeros were shot down in flames and one other was probably destroyed. Not a single Lightning was lost. The Liberators caused extensive damage to enemy installations and destroyed a power-boat and several barges. In the Solomons, large numbers of Avengers, Corsairs, Warhawks, and Wildcats first raided Kahili aerodrome, and then smashed shipping in the harbour.

In the Solomons Sea, about 60 miles south-east of Gasmata, New Britain, one of our night reconnaissance bombers located a Japanese destroyer. The warship was burning fiercely when our aircraft ceased its attacks.

Liberators, Bostons, Beaufighters, and Kittyhawks yesterday took part in extensive sweeps along the north New Guinea coast and the southern coast of New Britain. Apart from widespread damage to Japanese ground installations and dislocation of the enemy's supply system, the tally of our aircraft for a most successful day's operations was 16 Japanese aircraft destroyed, a destroyer and a large freighter-transport both . left burning, a tanker hit, and many barges destroyed.

SWEDEN NOTIFIES GERMANY

LONDON, August 3. The Swedish Government has notified Berlin of its intention to cancel the agreement under which German leave-troops from Norway have been allowed to pass through Sweden. The "Daily Herald/ reporting this, recalls that the agreement was unpopular in Sweden, and says that the Government now feels it can act without fear of German retaliation.

CAUSE OF HARLEM RIOT

NEW YORK, August 3.

Mr. Walter White, secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of the Coloured People, declared that the disturbances in Harlem resulted from a false rumour that' a policeman had killed a negro soldier in the presence of his mother. The rumour spread like wildflre, causing the riot in which looters seized the occasion to pillage and destroy.

Mi\ White added: "The mistreatment of negro soldiers, particularly in the south, is a very sore point with negroes, and this was the beginning of the trouble."