JAPS USE TANKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 128, 1 June 1944, Page 5

JAPS USE TANKS

ATTACK DEFEATED i FIGHTING ON BIAK ISLAND (Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 31. The first tank battle recorded in the south-west Pacific war developed during fierce fighting on Biak' Island, Dutch New Guinea, on Monday. Japanese light and medium tanks formed the spearhead of an enemy counterthrust against the American invasion troops driving toward Mokmer airfield from Mokmer village. American medium tanks defeated the Japanese armoured forces, destroying eight tanks and damagiing others. Artillery, as well as tanks, went into action on both sides. Allied warships and planes gave support. In fierce clashes some forward ground changed hands several times. However, the enemy forces were fiiiftlly repulsed, leaving many dead on the field. The crushing of this determined Japanese counter-assault implies that the Biak campaign is proceeding satisfactorily and that complete mastery of the island is now a matter o:f time and hard fighting. Liberators have concentrated 80 tons of bombs on Japanese positions round Mokmer airfield, and Mitchells and Bostons are making low-level strafing and bombing strikes. They have hit enemy tanks and gun emplacements. Thunderbolts destroyed three Japanese fighters. Two others were shot down by Allied naval gunfire and one by ground fire. SNIPERS TROUBLESOME. Enemy snipers operating from carefully concealed hideouts in the hills overlooking the coastal road to Mok■ner airfield are proving troublesome to the Americans, who are continuing the work of consolidating their positions before launching the final attack on the strategic airfield. Further ground clashes have occurred on the New Guinea mainland opposite Wakde Island, where American troops are within a mile of Maffin airstrip. More than 200 additional Japanese dead have been counted on this sector, bringing. the total of known enemy losses in the W.akdeSarmi area to 1347. . . ■ ■-.-■.-tilt is now disclosed feat transport planes took 2000 loads of men, fuel, and ammunition in 20 days to Hollandia in preparation for the invasion of Wakde Island on May 18. A sniall American force landed at Boeksi, 15 miles west of the Hollandia beach-head, on Thursday. This force has cut more Japanese escape routes from Hollandia. The landing parties killed a small number of enemy stragglers. Japanese dead and captured at Hollandia now total 3782. An additional 121 prisoners held by the Japanese have been rescued. DESTROYING JAPAN AMERICAN SUBMARINES Rec. 9 a.m. NEW YORK. May 31. A message from Pearl Harbour says that the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral C. W. Nimitz, when decorating 10 submarine officers, expressed regret that security reasons had not permitted him to disclose details of the undersea operations which constituted one of the major reasons why Japan's once grandiose plan for conquest of the Pacific had gone glimmering. He added that submarines had sunk more than 2,500,000 tons of Japanesel shipping, and in addition had damaged a considerable tonnage. AMONG THOSE SHOT THREE AUSTRALIAN AIRMEN O.C. SYDNEY, May 23. Three of the four Australians who were among the 47 _ Allied airmenprisoners shot by the Germans on March 22 for escaping, were from New South Wales. They were Flight ' Lieut. Kierath, Warrant Officer A. H. Hake, and Squadron Leader J. E. Williams, D.F.C. The fourth victim was Squadron Leader J. Catanach, D.F.C, of Melbourne. Hake's wife received a letter from her husband the day she was notified of his death. "He told me in this letter, dated February, that he was busy with some invention. He was always inventing things. He had planned to run his own air-condition-ing plant after the war. He was an electrical engineer," said Mrs. Hake. "I gave up my job early this year because I hoped my husband would be released soon." Williams won his D.F.C. for shooting down two Stuka dive-bombers in the Middle East. He originally enlisted with the R.A.F. before the outbreak of war. He was on loan to the R.A.A.F. when taken prisoner. "I had not seen my son for seven years," Williams's mother said. "He left for England to join the R.A.F. in December, 1937. John was captured by the Germans five miles behind their lines, when a machine-gun bullet hit his engine and forced the plane down in October, 1942." Kierath was a member of one of the best-known families in western New South Wales. He was captured by the Germans when he baled out1 off Cape Bon during the final stages j of the Tunisian campaign. He wa? ,1 picked up by a German rescue boa A about five miles from the shore an taken to a German hospital in Tun /,. ' Later, he was transported by ship to' Sicily. "This was the worst of j^? experiences, according to a letter ,\ V f , received from him," his brother, |yj, .' H. W. Kierath said. "He wrote tlv'jt our own aircraft strafed his ship _ ar 1( j a torpedo fired at it went under a ' oa . He described the trip acrosr j r Oln " Tunisia as the greatest nightr ' c . he had ever experienced. He sa: r" A with the first R.A.A.F. contir *^ t ■to Rhodesia, where he joined i«,V 3 3rd Squadron. R.A.F., later ser\ riirJd : n thp Middle East with the 450 th SgVadron! MINERS' PRO r IT .#3T BUTTER RATION RE D ACTION Rec. 1 p.m. CANBE E'.ftA, June 1. The general secretary of \ the Miners' Federation, Mr. Grant, t that an appeal is being made . to the Minister pi Customs, Senator B^j ie> not to cut the miners butter ratio n.".,. The proposed cut of two ounces a v/ee vi £ in the but ter ration was the < ? av ; se o£ pro test strikes at two collier acs yesterchy Mr Forde has ann off nee d that Australia's new butter rr ,t« m of six ounces wiU operate for eigh .t»., weeks tvom next Monday. Dairy -pr p6 Action was still .ailing, he said, \m t the eight-ounce ration would be re- t rg rt - ed to if : _ seaaQna i

SYDNEY, May 31. The first tank battle recorded in the south-west Pacific war developed during fierce fighting on Biak' Island, Dutch New Guinea, on Monday. Japanese light and medium tanks formed the spearhead of an enemy counterthrust against the American invasion troops driving toward Mokmer airfield from Mokmer village.