PACIFIC BOMBINGS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 March 1943, Page 5

PACIFIC BOMBINGS

JAP. SHIPS AND BASES

ENEMY RAID FRUITLESS (N.Z.P.A. Special Australian Correspondent). SYDNEY, March 8. On Sunday General MacArthur’s bombers kept up their offensive against enem£ bases in the arc of islands north of Australia. An 8000ton enemy cargo vessel, headed east, was bomt>_ed with unobserved results in Stephen Strait, between Vulcan Island and the north coast of New Guinea. A spokesman at General MacArthur’s headquarters said the ship could not possibly have belonged to the Bismarck Sea convoy. Toeal. in the Kei Islands, in the Banda Sea, was attacked by a force of Australian-manned Hudsons and Dutch-manned Mitchells. Large fires were started along the waterfront area at this Japanese base, which has been heavily raided recently. Liberators maintained routine .attacks on the Japanese aerodromes at Gasinata and Cape Gloucester, in New Britain, and Salamaua, in New Guinea. Havoc attack bombers made 33 strafing passes across the Guadagasal saddle, the gateway to Mubo, which is at present occupied by -enemy troops. Recently several “softening’ attacks have been made by our air force on targets in this area. The same Havocs swept along the north New Guinea coast, machine-gunning loaded enemy supply barges near Mindrudut Island, and raking the airstrip at Dona. Dona is on the coast between Salamaua and Cape Ward Hunt, and Mindrudut Island is just .to the north of it. For the second time Allied Headquarters reports that Spitfires have been in action. After shooting down six Zeros over Darwin on March 3, they destroyed a light bomber, which was reconnoitring the area on SunRay. , •, The Japanese on Saturday made their heaviest air raid on Goodenough Island, in the d’Entrecasteaux group, since it was occupied some months ago by Australian troops. Nine *me'dium 'bombers with an escort of 15 fighters attacked the Vivigani area, on the north-east corner of lhe island. They caused neither damage nor casualties. JAPANESE LOSSES SYDNEY, March 8. More than 800 Japanese aircraft, 40 warships, and 78 cargo vessels have been definitely destroyed m tne South-west Pacific Command area since the first issue of the daily communiques from General MacArthur s Headquarters on April 21, 1942. Winn probably destroyed and damaged machines, the total of Japanese aircraft put out of action in this period is nearly 1000, and 255 ships of all types have been either sunk or- damaged. These figures are complied Irom the dav to "day communiques, and do not take into"account large numbers of enemy aircraft known to have been destroyed on the ground, nor estimated ship losses in raids, ol which it has been impossible to confirm the results. JAPANESE “ADMISSION’’

LONDON, March 8. An official Tokio announcement, j broadcast by the Berlin radio, re- ( ports the loss of seven Japanese war- , ships and seven ’planes in the New ■ Guinea and Solomons areas between January 16 and March 5. AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY I SYDNEY, March 8. '< The last Lockheed Lightning fight-1 ers are being used extensively in the ‘ South-west Pacific area for P“ht°graphic reconnaissance work. 1 he men flying these aeroplanes have had narrow escapes, but have managed to out-manoeuvre their Zero attackers > and return safely. Their job is to ‘ avoid fighting and bring back their ( films intact. , . , j “Theirs is the tradition of. high fly- t Ing and high, speed set in the bad old • days of Allied air inferiority by Cap- , tain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) Karl ; Polifka, of California, whose huge . moustaches were a feature of the , Papuan scene,* and who was ‘pop to the boys at the age of 33,” writes die ■ New Guinea war correspondent of the ( “Sydney Morning Herald.” "He, too, j flew a Lockheed Lightning and took on himself the whole burden of. aerial : photographic reconnaissance from the overworked Hudsons and Catahnas. H” serviced his machine himself and slept under its wings. Not knowing fear, Lieutenant-Colonel Polifka was the first* exponent of the art of ‘Zero ’ teasing.’ He flew on his luck all the time and often came home with his aircraft full of holes. Once he had an engine shot out over Rabaul. In spite of this major handicap he evaded the Japanese and went on to Lae to take more pictures. Here he met more Zeros, but he escaped them by using the clouds, and landed at his base out of petrol. As a prelude to the American invasion of Guadalcanal, Lieutenant-Colonel Polifka stripped a Flying Fortress, filled every aperture he could find with cameras, and then photographed the Japanese-held 1 island thoroughly. His pictures made the basic maps on which the invasion plans were made.” Lieutenant-Colonel Polifka is now on duty in America, but the work of his successors has been used to plan many successful aerial assaults on enemy-held points. ALLIES’ STRATEGY NEW~YORK, March 7. "Both General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey, have been expected to do a big man's job with a boy’s equipment,” writes Joseph C. Harsch, military correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor.” "American and British service officials have realised this, and would like to send both commanders greater forces than they have been able to supply. However, the Allied plamol strategy was worked out because it was felt absolutely impossilbe to fight simultaneous offensives both in Europe and the Pacific. To have divided the offensives evenly would have meant futility in each. Whether the decision to concentrate on Europe first was right or wrong, it has never since been possible to depart from it without jeopardising everything everywhere. “The decision was made with the expectation that General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey would be able to hold the Japanese at bay while the other campaign was going on,”, says Mr. Harsch. “There has never been any absence of realisation of how much is being expected of them, and the appeals from down under have been accepted as more or less inevitable. But these appeals have not been acted on beyond the minimum esti'hiates of what is necessary to hold that front. While there is no doubt that the Japanese have been strengthening their positions throughout the islands north of Australia, these concentrations are still considered in Washington to be short of the size sufficient for an offensive attempt against Australia. The assumption here is that the Japanese have decid-' ed to concentrate on defence so far as the Pacific islands are concerned.” JAPANESE DESPERATION. 1 (Rec. 12.20) NEW YORK. March 8. ‘ The Japanese, in keeping with their character as military gangsters, may again attempt—and . even more

desperately—to stave off inevitable, eventual defeat in the Pacific, warns the “New York Times.” Irrespective of the cost, they may try to capture all the bases from which Allied attacks can be launched. This would mean a drive against Australia, the entire China coastal area, and then Siberia. “The Japanese concentrations to the north of Australia and the Japanese drives in China, therefore, cannot be overlooked,” the paper adds. “To survive, Japan must take these bases to safeguard her vaunted invulnerability. A decision must be taken this year—but we do not doubt the outcome.” The “New York Times” says that if Japanese air power is waning, as it appears to be, then Japan’s doom is sealed. “There are indications that the war lords’ dreams of victory are fading, even in their own warped minds,” it adds. “Tokio has not dared to announce the wiping out of the Japanese convoy in the Bismarck Sea last week, but the Far Eastern grapevine can be depended on to spread the news. It will raise the spectre of Allied air armadas over the ‘land of the gods,’ and will fill the primitive Japanese mind with terror of the unknown.” The London “Times” stresses that if the flood of Japanese aggression has been halted, it has not yet been turned back. “The Allies have a huge task ahead, but they are not likely to repeat their original underestimate oi. Japanese fighting capacity." says the paper. “The Japanese, however, made an even more serious mistake in launching the war. What they failed to measure was the Allied capacity for recovery. They are now committed to a long war against enemies whom they cannot hope to outlast.’’ JAPANESE REINFORCEMENTS.

(N.Z.P.A. Special Australian Correspondent}

(Rec. 12.40) SYDNEY, March 9. The annihilation of the Bismarck Sea convoy has not removed the Japanese threat to the southern Pacific. Already new enem’”’ ships moved into Rabaul harbour have substantially replaced the 22 vessels sunk-in New Guinea waters last week. Military observers in Australia consider the present concentration of enemy shipping at Rabaul is far heavier than is required merely to maintain supplies for Japanese garrisons in the New Guinea and New Britain area. A reconnaissance photograph now’ released by General MacArthur’s Headquarters, taken shortly before the departure of the Bismarck Sea convoy from Rabaul, shows that more than 60 warships and cargo vessels were in the harbour. There are no fewer than that number there to-day. Correspondents at General MacArthur’s Headquarters declare the latest reconnaissance reports do not suggest that the probable loss of about 100 planes shot out of combat in the convoy has drastically weakened Japanese air fleets in the southern Pacific. The enemy is believed to have adequate reserves oi’ Zero protection for his intact bomber strength. -Military leaders in this theatre ol wav do not consider the brilliant Bismarck Sea victory has justified any modification of their beliel, writes the Sydney “Herald" war correspondent, to-day. adding: 'there is considerable difference of opinion between the authorities in this area anti the authorities at Washington and London as to what forces and materials afe necessary to fight a successful holding war in the southern Pacific.

MORE PLANES NEEDED

• The result- of the Bismarck Sea action was a triumph for organisation ■and airmanship,-says the Herald correspondent. It could not by an stretch of imagination be attributed to the crushing force of the Allied air fleet that went out to stop the conV °“The fact that only 136 Allied planes were thrown into the attack against a convoy protected by ten warships and 150 fighters is pointed out as showing that a flow of aircraL is dictated. New appeals are understood to have been made at Washington for larger supplies whica lhe authorities here consider to be the very minimum ol what is needed loi a holding war,” writes the “Sydney Sun” correspondent. “Although our aircraft losses in combat were negligible, maintenance and replacement of damaged planes is a thorny problem calling for much ingenuity and improvisation. The Japanese movement over the two thousand-mile island arc has imposed an additional strain on the vital heavy bomber strength, which is now being used lor armed reconnaissance. Their diversion to this work paid handsome dividends in giving a two-day warning of the despatch, of last week’s New Guinea convoy.” Authoritative Australian sources disagree flatly with the Washington view that the Japanese reinfoicement of the Southern Pacific is based wholly on defensive strategy. They state that on his sea mutes down to Malaya and across to the Solomons, the enemy has tremendous free shipping tonnage, about that required lor supply tfeeds, and that the ninety thousand ton convoy sunk in the Bismarck Sea represented only a small ’proportion of this free tonnage.

N.Z. NOT SCARED. All the main Australian papers, today, feature articles stressing . the points outlined above. The articles are written by their own correspondents. attached to the South-west Pacific Headquarters. It is emphasised that there is the fullest acceptance hero of the Allied grand strategy that the Southern Pacific shall be a holding front—but there is wide disparity in the estimates of what constitutes the minimum requirements to guarantee that front will be held. Dispatches from American correspondents to their home papers stress that with sufficient aircraft, Allied fliers could continue to take terrific toll of Japanese ships, troops and material. In the words ol one American correspondent: “There are more and better Japanese targets in this area, than anywhere else m the Pacific." , , , The Sydney “Telegraph to-day features an article by a war correspondent just returned from New Zealand, which is highly complimentary to the Dominion s war. effort. But the writer seems surprised that “few Now Zealanders fear their country now stands in very great danger from the Japanese. This feeling persists despite Mr. Curtin s recent warnings, and it will take a big successful Japanese push io change most New Zealand minds on this point." While there had been a strengthened feeling of - optimism throughout Australia, following the B’c.-ma r ck Sea battle, the official view here is that “the Pacific scene remains broadly the same as it was a week ago, when General MacArthur issued his warning on the growth ot enemy preparations north of Australia." MAIL FOR CAPTIVES RUGBY, March 8. • Acording .to information through the International Red Cross Committee, Geneva, Japanese authorities recently distributed several thousands of letters received up to the end pi last year for prisoners of war in Japan and occupied territories. It is stated that the distribution of letters, which reached Japan since the beginning of this year, is proceeding.