SMASHING JAP. PLANES

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1943, Page 5

SMASHING JAP. PLANES

ANOTHER RAID ON WEWAK JAP. SUPPLIES DESTROYED (N.Z.P.A. Special Australian Correspondent) SYDNEY, August 31. Wewak, on the north New Guinea coast, has had another heavy pounding from General MacArthur s bombers. Enemy aircraft concentrations in the area were again smashed, 37 aircraft being destroyed on the ground or in the air, 12 probably destroyed, and 17 damaged. One of the biggest air battles of the New Guinea campaign marked the newest Allied raid on Wewak. At least 60 enemy fighters intercepted the attacking force, but they were roughly handled by our escorting fighters, most of them being either shot down or so seriously damaged that they could not continue the combat. Details of the engagement are given in General MacArthur’s latest communique, which says: “Our escorted heavy bombers in force attacked the aerodromes at Wewak and Boram, placing 114 tons of explosives on aircraft- revetment and dispersal areas. At least 12 aeroplanes caught on the ground were destroyed. Many fires and explosions occurred in both target areas. Interception by at least 60 fighters resulted in a fierce air combat in which the enemy was badly defeated. Twenty-five of his aeroplanes were destroyed, another 12 probably destroyed, and 17 damaged. Our losses were light.” General MacArthur’s communique to-day reports other heavy Allied air blows on New Guinea objectives. About 180 miles east of Wewak the important enemy supply base of Madang took a solid hammering when escorted medium bombers dropped 55 tons of bombs on the Alexishafen and Bogadjim areas. Giving the results of these attacks, the communique says: “A group of 15 barges at Admosin Island was hit and many were destroyed. Six barges at Bostram Bay were sunk, and buildings on Sek Island were heavily damaged. Many fires were started in fuel and supply dumps at the Alexishafen airfield, the Amrod mission, and at Bogadjim. There was no interception.” Further disrupting the passage of enemy supplies in the New Britain and New*Guinea sector, cur attack planes and fighters made a sweep along the south coast of New Britain, bombing the jetty and dump areas at Gasmata and destroying two barges at Cape Beechey. A Catalina on night patrol near Cape St. George at the southern extremity of New Ireland scored a direct hit with a 5001 b bomb on a Japanese cruiser. In Vitiaz Strait, between New Britain and New Guinea, a small enemy cargo ship was attacked and damaged. In the land fighting round Salamaua Japanese counter-attacks against the Australian forces on the Kila ridge have been repulsed with heavy enemy losses. More than 17 tons of explosives were dropped in a raid on Babo, in Dutch New Guinea, causing extensive damage to buildings and starting fires among fuel and supply dumps. One enemy aeroplane was destroyed on the ground.

BARGES AND‘PLANES. (N.Z I’A Special AußtralJan Correspondent) SYDNEY, August 31. Admiral Halsey’s fighters yesterday strafed Kahili aerodrome, on Bougainville Island, in the Solomons, destroying eight enemy aeroplanes on the ground. Other Allied fighters, attacking the mouth of the Vila River on Kolombangara Island, destroyed three Japanese barges. Four other barges were destroyed in attacks on Ysabel Island. The American occupation of Arundel Island brings Vila, the main Japanese air base on Kolombangara Island, within range of Allied artillery. The northern shores of Arundel Island are only about a mile from Vila, where a large Japanese garrison is blockaded.

CAMPAIGN DIFFICULTIES. (Rec. 12.20 p.m.) SYDNEY, Sept. 1. Between long-range plans for the defeat of the Japanese and the actualities of short-range fighting there is a striking contrast to-day, says the “Sydney Morning Herald” in a leader. The slow, grinding, painful struggle goes on in New Guinea andthe Central Solomons, while following the Quebec Conference, where military discussions turned very largely on the war against Japan, there has been much talk of Allied preparations for major attacks. Almost every day brings reports ol rapidly increasing American naval and air power to be devoted in .an expanding measure to ~ the Pacific. These are varied by. fire-eating speeches about “wading in and tearing Japan apart with dynamite, and gutting her with incendiaries.” Such statements are good tor morale, no doubt, but the central problem remains—how to get at this tough and cunning enemy who has flung a great defensive screen far from his home When the Japanese established islands.

their new empire the Allies lost bases indispensable for operations against Japan proper, and a year’s hard lighting in the South-western Pacific islands has shown how difficult it is going to be to win them back. _ In the tropical mountains of New Guinea and the festering jungles of the Solomons the Japanese have fought with fanatical obstinacy and ferocity. There has been no alternative to these savage and tedious island battles. More of them will have to be waged in the unavoidable struggle for bases. But in the larger Pacific war the Allies can have no intention indefinitely of fighting the Japanese airstrip‘by airstrip, island by island, man to man. That would mean making war on Japan’s terms. We shall have to force her to fight on ours. Japan has enormous reserves of trained soldiers. She would like nothing better than to exhaust our manpower in interminable struggles on land. What she cannot afford are naval and air losses on the scale sustained around New Guinea and the Solomons. The Allies unquestionably have been winning the war of attrition in these fields, and it’must be their object to exploit to the full their advantages at sea and in the air.