ALLIED METHODS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 102, 2 May 1944, Page 5

ALLIED METHODS

EFFECTIVE IN PACIFIC

LONDON, May L" The Chief of Staff of the New Zealand Military Forces, Lieut.-General E. Puttick, who has come to London with. Mr. Peter Fraser, said tonight that Allied strategy in the Pacific was proving effective. He said that the enemy fighting spirit seemed to be unimpaired, but the Japanese were not super-men. If you throw a spanner into the works," hessaid ."they are not good at getting the works going again." General Puttick paid a tribute to the troops trained by New Zealand officers and n.c.o.s, and said they had proved some of the world's best jungla fighters. MISSIONARY'S STORY ; • ■ V SYDNEY, May I. The experiences of missionaries who' had been captured by the Japanese in,l New Guinea 15 months ago were re-, counted by a member of the party, that was freed by the American in-, Vasion forces at Hollandia. Dressed, in tattered clothing held together with.string and canvas, they were gaunt and haggard; their skins were sallow! and grey,' and many had sores on their bodies. They were the first white prisoners to be released" from the Japanese in' New Guinea. Forty of their number had been killed in a strafing run by Allied planes while being shipped to Hollandia by the Japanese, and they suffered further casualties when the American bombing offensive opened at Hollandia. - The missionaries, who comprised several nationalities, were mainly ' Roman Catholics and Lutherans, and they included a number of nuns. An Australian missionary said that after the Japanese invasion the missionaries were left alone for a while, but were systematically rounded up in January, 1943, and then were moved from village to village. Just before the Americans landed ai Hollandia a Japanese interpreter ex? horted the missionaries to bear them* selves with soldierly fortitude. "Within two hours the Jaanese soldiers were' gibbering like idiots," added the mis« sionary, "while the Japanese officers scrambled) through the mud using their swords as walking sticks." One hundred missionaries, including 40 nuns, were rescued by the American invasion forces at Hollandia. Tha official announcement of their release did not specify whether the mission* aries had been captives of the Japanese or had been hiding in the hills. They included 13 Americans, seven Dutch, three Poles, one Australian, ona Czechoslovakian. The remainder wera Germans. t NAZI VIEW OF CAMPAIGN Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, May It The Tokio correspondent of ;■., tha German news agency stated that the . Americans, with their new landings, aimed at more than just clearing th( Japanese from New Guinea. The land* ings were to prepare the ground fo| a north-western drive to the Carp* lines, where the Allies hoped to join hands with Admiral Nimitz's Central- v Pacific forces at Palan Island.- •„ '■ ..-■■ If the Americans could establish; ait .'-' bases in Dutch New Guinea the posi-_. '>; tion of the ,whole of the Carolines and -;.* Philippines would be s very '-materially;-:-'^: affected,-, ,•. * ;.: •.■ ,<:-' i'? J:~?'.s&'->%ices.