ATTACK AT ARAWE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1944, Page 5

ATTACK AT ARAWE

AMERICANS CLEAR AREA SYDNEY, January 19. American troops killed 139 Japanese in an attack on Sunday on enemy positions east of Arawe, on the southern coast of New Britain. Today's communique from General Mac Arthur's headquarters reports that the attack cleared an area of 1000 yards beyond the Americans' perimeter on the peninsula. Twenty-eight machine-gun nests were wiped out, and portion of a field battery captured. Red Indians, from the 158 th Bushmasters Regiment, trained in the Panama jungle, were in the leading assault force. They were landed secretly at Arawe to support the Americans who won the original beach-head on December 15. Allied air and sea units are harass- j ing Japanese coastal traffic east of Arawe. Airacobras sank two small loaded boats in Marjie Bay, and patrol torpedo-boats destroyed three barges at Didi. A large force of R.A.A.F. Beauforts, Kittyhawks, and Spitfires started fires in bivouac and supply areas at Gasmata, New Britain, on Monday morning. Liberators attacked a 9000-ton merchantman at Ambon Harbour, in Amboina Island, setting it on fire. Three of eight intercepting Japanese fighters were shot down and one probably destroyed. Off the Admiralty Islands a 2000-ton Japanese freighter was left stationary and smoking by our air patrols. The heaviest Allied air raid on Monday was on. the Hansa Bay area. In two strikes Liberators and Mitchells bombed the Nubia airstrip, anti-aircraft positions, and installations with 120 tons of bombs.