NORTH PACIFIC RAID

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 5

NORTH PACIFIC RAID

HOTTEST OF THE WAR

NEW YORK, September 15. The attack on the Kurile Islands on Monday, from which 10 out of 20 American bombers failed to return, was the hottest, deadliest, and costliest aerial : action in the North Pacific, reports the United Press correspondent at the Eleventh Air Force Headquarters in Alaska. Most of the returning planes were badly shot up and carried dead and wounded among their crews.

Two Japanese strongholds, the army staging base at Kashawabara, and the naval base at Kataoka, on Shimushu Island, had obviously been preparing for attacks since the raid on August 8.

Pilots described the anti-aircraft fire as the heaviest and most accurate they ever saw. At least one battleship is believed to have been among the naval craft sending up streams of flak from Paramushiro Strait.

The raiders knocked out 13 of 25 opposing fighters in a hectic 52-minute engagement. One pilot said we lacked fighter assistance and had too few bombers to obtain mutual support.

AUSTRALIAN BODY ARMOUR

SYDNEY, September 15

Light body armour made in Australia withstood bursts from two sub-machine-guns in tests carried out in Sydney. The armour consists of light steel plates linked together, and with an enclosed tunic it weighs 61b 13oz. Bursts were fired from a range of 25 yards. Most of the bullets broke into small fragments. Some, from a Thompson gun, flattened into mushroom shape. Australian-made armour-plate steel is claimed to be superior to that used in body armour by Britain, Russia, Germany, or Japan. The armour , will resist .45 calibre and automatic pistol bullets, bayonets, hand grenade and bomb splinters, and shrapnel. It will not resist highvelocity missiles such as rifle and machine-gun bullets.

The City Council last night approved an application from the Wellington Lawn Tennis Association for the use of eight asphalt tennis courts at Miraxn'ar during the winter season and for ■the courts during the summer season at a rental of £80 per annum-

Vichy radio declared tonight: "The Allied retreat has been definitely slowed down by the intervention of heavy cruisers which are shelling the German positions.

Dispatches from Allied correspondents earlier today told of fierce German attacks and Allied withdrawals in the centre of the Salerno front.

The Algiers correspondent of the Columbia.Broadcasting Company said that .Allied forces have captured some high ground west of Salerno where German panzers are making a terrific bid to smash through to the coast. The Germans are throwing in wave after wave of the latest tanks, coupled with mortar artillery fire, and constant ground strafing from the air. The Allies at the southern end of the Salerno bridgehead are fanning out into the hills, but in the centre sector a swaying battle is going on. The Germans have recaptured several positions, and their guns command the beaches.

An American commentator, broadcasting over Algiers radio, said that a bitterly severe battle is still raging along the line from Salerno to Agropoli. Tank clashes and infantry engagements are being bloodily fought under artillery duels between German guns situated in the hills and Allied guns on the beaches and Allied warships in the gulf.

CRUCIAL HOURS NOW PASSING.

Another American commentator stated: "The German break-through on the Sele River split the Allied bridgehead. The Allies have not yet fought their way from the Salerno coastal plain. One of the fiercest engagements went on around the Battapaglia road junction, which both sides have taken and retaken. The crucial hours in Salerno bridgehead 'are now passing. Although the Germans are counterattacking in force in the central sector, the Fifth ,Army is full of fight and holding the enemy." The British United Press reports that the Germans launched nine-counter-attacks during the day, but that we still hold all the beaches we occupied.

The correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Agency says that despite the Allied reinforcements the Germans on the Salerno front are easily numerically equal to the Allied forces. The Germans' heaviest attacks occurred at Attavilla and Abanella, which are situated on high ground opposite the southern end of the front. The Allies, who held both places, had to give them up in order to straighten the line. Algiers radio this evening, quoting reports just received from Italy, said: "The Germans south of Salerno are launching attack after attack. Many German tanks have been destroyed." Later tonight Algiers radio quoted a headquarters spokesman as saying that the American troops have been able to shorten their lines and reinforce their positions. The battlefront has been fluctuating.

The Paris radio commentator Jean Paquis declared that the German High Command realises that the time factor is decisively important in the Salerno battle, and thus Field-Marshal Rommel's participation in the battle must be expected at any moment.

Official German quarters say that the army will bar the Eighth Army's way around Agropoli and prevent the junction of the Fifth and Eighth Armies, "which would change the whole aspect of the front."

Today's German communique states: "Great successes have . been achieved against the Allied landing forces at Salerno and Eboli, where the Germans encircled one British and American group and annihilated another. The British and Americans who were thrown back near Eboli are again offering resistance near the coast under cover of their ships and guns."

NAVY'S BIG PART.

The big part the Navy is playing »in the battle for Salerno is emphasised by Reuters correspondent with the Fleet. He says: "Great clouds of cordite smoke and fumes hang like a curtain in front of the warships shelling the German positions. The thunder of the naval guns reverberates around the bay. Black columns of smoke mark points where the naval gunners score hits against enemy tank and transport concentrations. For hour after hour the cruiser from which I watched the bombardment shuddered from stem to stern as the guns fired rapid broadsides into the hills. A formidable screen of Allied fighters protects the warships in the daytime. The Luftwaffe is more venturesome at night, but the tired naval gunners again spring to action stations. This goes on every night, but the roar of the gunfire from the ships has never been silenced."

It is reported from Cairo that most of the Dodecanese Islands are still under Italian control. Rhodes was partially destroyed by savage German dive-bomber attacks within an hour of the announcement of the Italian armistice. The bombers swooped low and machine-gunned the streets, causing many civilian casualties.