PHILIPPINES DEFENCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 September 1944, Page 5

PHILIPPINES DEFENCE

JAPS. RUSHING PREPARATIONS

U.S.A. FLEETS CONCENTRATING (N.Z.P.A. Special Australian Correspondent)

SYDNEY, September 24.

The Japanese are rushing munitions and reinforcements to the Philippines, according to the Tokio radio. The radio claims that Japan now has superior numerical strength in the Philippines and is making great efforts to increase her garrisons’ supply of war equipment. “The time for decisive battle is rapidly approaching,” says the Tokio radio. “Munitions are being rushed to the Philippines to guarantee that the Japanese forces there will not make futile the heroic death met by many Japanese warriors on small Pacific islands before the overwhelming material odds of the enemy.” The broadcast claimed that the Americans had moved three or four powerful naval task forces into the Philippines area. The components included the new aircraft carriers Bunker’s Hill, Enterprise, Lexington, and Hornet, and many converted carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Week-end communiques from General MacArthur’s Headquarters reveal that Catalina flying-boats of the South-west Pacific Command made extensive day and night raids on the Southern Philippines during last week. They sank or seriously damaged a 3000-ton freighter-transport, a 2000-ton merchantman, a 1000-ton merchantman, a tanker, and 17 smaller vessels. The Catalinas made the most northerly attack yet reported from this area operating over Bohol Island, 50 miles north-west of Mindanao, the most southern of the Philippine Islands. Carrier and land-based aeroplanes are maintaining the neutralisation of the Halmahera area, where the American forces on Morotai Island are within 300 miles of the Philippines. They completed the destruction of eight unserviceable aircraft, probably destroyed four, and damaged many others at the Galela and Miti aerodromes. The fact that Allied aircraft-carriers have been able to operate near Halmahera without provoking any enemy air reaction indicates how effectively the Japanese aerodromes have been neutralised. Allied light naval patrols operating in Halmahera waters sank five supplyladen barges. Mopping up operations are continuing in both British and Dutch New Guinea, where remnants of two Japanese armies are being hunted down. To-day’s South-west Pacific communique reports that 835 Japanese were killed and 200 taken prisoner in recent patrol clashes, while 100 friendly nationals had been released from the enemy. RAID ON PHILIPPINES.

NEW YORK, September 24

Another heavy raid by American aircraft on the Philippines is reported bv the Tokio radio. “Early to-day 200 enemy aeroplanes bombed Legaspi, Cebu," and other cities in the Central Philippines/’ says the radio. ‘The extent of the enemy losses which our interceptors inflicted is at present unknown, as details are still under investigation.” JAP. LOSSES AGAIN HEAVY (Recd. 1.35 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Sept. 24. Admiral Nimitz announced, that carrier planes of Halsey’s third fleet sank twenty-nine more ships in the Manila Bay area, damaged twenty, and sank or damaged sixteen small craft. . J They destroyed or damaged two hundred planes on September 21. The Americans lost eleven planes. FIGHTING ON PELELIU. WASHINGTON, September 24. “Enemy forces on Peleliu Island have slowly and steadily been pushed towards the northern end of the island,” says a Pacific Fleet communique. “Approximately three-fourths ol the island is now in our hands.” MORE AERIAL RAIDS SYDNEY, September 25. Allied light naval units patrolling the Halmahera coast have strafed enemy defences. In the main aerial strike reported by General MacArthur’s communique to-day, Liberators dropped more than a hundred tons of bombs on Celebes airfields. Japanese shipping in the Banda Sea has been harassed, five barges and several small craft being destroyed or seriously damaged. PHOTOGRAPHER KILLED NEW YORK, September 24. The United States Navy Department has announced that the Austra-lian-born Paramount News war photographer, Damien Parer, has been killed in action while filming front-line operations on Peleliu Island, in the Palau Group. Damien Parer formerly was one .of Australia’s most noted airmen, and early in the war was a photographer on the New Guinea front while he also engaged in other exploits in which he used the camera with notable success.

U.S.A. MERCHANT MARINE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24.

The United States Merchant Marine which at the start of the war totalled eleven million dead-weight tons, now totals thirty-five million tons comprising three thousand four hundred ships. Admiral Emery Land in a report to President Roosevelt stated this, and added that after Germany’s defeat, it would take twice or three times their merchant tonnage to bring a weight of arms equal'to those now blasting Germany to bear on the Japanese.