CLEARING LEYTE

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 November 1944, Page 5

CLEARING LEYTE

JAP. POSITIONS CRUSHED

.WASHINGTON, Nov. 3. “On the 10th Corps front elements of the 24th Division have crushed the enemy’s final positions in the Leyte Valiev and have rapidly covered the last six miles into Carigara, effecting a junction with Ist Cavalry units, says General MacArthur’s communique. “The enemy remnants are being driven west and south towards Orm°On the 24th Corps front elements of the 7th Division are pursuing disorganised enemy parties into the mountains. Our troops have reached Bavbay, on the west coast, 26 miles south of Ormoc. The final remnants ol the enemy’s forces are being driven into the small confined Ormoc sector where they are enveloped on all three sides by our ground forces. “The enemy losses are now estimated at more than 30,000, and the end of the Leyte and Samar campaign is in sight. <• “Enemy air activity was directed principally against shipping, which sustained some damage. In numerous interceptions our fighters shot down 27 enemy aeroplanes.” PELELIU “ATTACK” A Pacific Fleet communique reports that a single enemy torpedo boat on the night of October 26 attempted to attack one of the beaches on Peleliu Island, where cargo had been unloaded. A torpedo is believed to have been launched, but did no damage. There were a few personnel casualties. The torpedo-boat, however, was sunk as it tried to escape. Corsairs bombed and strafed shipping installations and oil storage areas on Koror Island in the northern Paiaus on October 30, and hit trucks and barges on Babelthaup Island. They also bombed and strafed the airfield on Yap Island. The United Press correspondent at Pearl Harbour says that in the light of the Pacific Fleet communique it appears that the recent reinvasion of Peleliu announced*by the Tokio radio was really an unsuccessful sneak attack by one Japanese torpedo-boat against American shipping off the beach.

GEN. MACARTHUR’S ESCAPE

NEW YORK, November 3

“General MacArthur had one of his closest escapes from death when the Japanese in a strafing attack put a .50 calibre bullet into the wall a foot over his head,” reports the Associated Press correspondent at General MacArthur’s Headquarters. “Colonel Lloyd Lehebas, the Generaffs aide, heard the bullet strike and rushed into the room. General MacArthur nodded unconcernedly at the hole and said ‘well not yet.’ “General MacArthur had another close escape in the Philippines early in the war when a Japanese bomb exploded nearby wounding his Filipino orderly standing beside him.” JAPAN’S “HERO GODS” NEW YORK, November 2. The Japanese are talking of a new “victory weapon.” This is an organisation of pilots who are prepared to dive aircraft loaded with high explosives on to warships. The German radio, talking of the “weapon,” states that the pilots will be known as “hero gods,” and that the time has now come to use them. JAP. SHIPPING LOSSES.

CHUNGKING, November 3

General Wedemeryer’s communique reports: Liberators on Thursday sank a Japanese destroyer and severely damaged a transport in separate attacks east of Formosa.