AIRCRAFT AND SHIPS

Evening Star, Issue 24297, 11 September 1942, Page 2

AIRCRAFT AND SHIPS

■ ♦ JAPANESE LOSSES IN SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC DETAILS COMPUTED FROM COMMUNIQUES (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY, September 10. During the period in which General MacArthiir’s South-west' Pacific command has operated, since April 21, at least 47" Japanese aircraft have (been shot down, destroyed on the ground, or damaged in this war zone. This was revealed in a review of 150 communiques issued to date from General MacArtliur’s headquarters. The Japanese losses in tho recent Solomons fighting are not included in the tally. Details of the enemy aircraft accounted for by Australian and American airmen are :—.IOO bombers, fighters, flying boats, and float planes destroyed, 70 severely damaged and probably destroyed, and 107 damaged. The real total is undoubtedly considerably higher, as the communiques frequently made reference to the destruction of unspecified numbers of grounded aircraft by bombings, but no official estimate of tho number lias been made. Of the Japanese aircraft definitely destroyed, more than 200 were fighters. Tho Allied losses in the same period were not always listed in tho communiques. Tho greatest number of admitted losses iu a single operation was four planes. Some observers, howevir, place the ratio of our losses to the Japanese at one to two. The Allied air and naval forces under General MacArthur’s command have inflicted heavy war shipping losses on the enemy. They have sunk one aircraft carrier and. severely damaged another, sunk three cruisers and damaged four, sunk two destroyers and damaged three, sunk tlu-ec ocean-going submarines and four midget submarines. probably destroyed two more ocean-going submarines, and damaged a. further two, sunk 12 transports and damaged 26, and destroyed five gunboats and an unspecified nunjber of landing barges.