MOPPING-UP OPERATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 25172, 11 May 1944, Page 5

MOPPING-UP OPERATIONS

NEW GUINEA CAMPAIGN AIR OFFENSIVE INTENSIFIED SYDNEY, May 10. Japanese troops captured at Hollandia since the American landing on April 22 now total* 183. The number of enemy killed is 87.1. Mopping-up operations are continuing. / The intensified Allied air offensive against Japanese bases west of Hollandia has covered many targets. Over Jefman Island our planes shot down one of 11 intercepting enemy fighters, with others probably destroyed. We lost one plane. In the Schouten Islands Mokmer airfield was again attacked. Two raids were nfade without interference. A Japanese freighter and two other vessels in the same area were strafed. In the Wakde-Sarmi sector, about 100 miles west of Hollandia, our patrols attacked Sawar airfield. In British New Guinea the main concentration point for the remnants of the Japanese 18th army, Wewak, was .bombed and shelled by Allied patrol torpedo boats. To-day's communique from- General MacArthur's headquarters notes the first recorded loss of an Allied patrol torpedo-boat in the South-west Pacinc. The torpedo-boat was sunk in an engagement with Japanese snore batteries, armoured barges, and floatplanes off Aitara (Bougainville Island). " It seems unbelievable that we could land suoh large forces so far north as Hollandia with practically no opposition," Rear-Admiral Daniel Barbey, who commanded the amphibious and attack force, told war correspondents. " Up till now," he added " the Allies have been extraordinarily fortunate in such operations in the Southern Pacific, but we are now approaching tyie inner rim of the Japanese defences and in future the losses might not be so light." ' '