ORMOC CAPTURES

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 December 1944, Page 5

ORMOC CAPTURES

JAP. SUPPLY DEPOTS •

ENEMY’S HEAVY CASUALTIES

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14.

General MacArthur’s communique on Thursday says Our 77th Division, advancing north of Ormoc, captured main enemy supply depots a mile northward, after bitter resistance. Our long-range artillery supported the advance, and destroyed an enemy barge nest. Our troops in the 10th Corps sector have continued to maintain pressure from the north. Enemy planes attacked our shipping. Eight "of the raiders were shot down. In the Leyte and Samar Islands campaign, up to the present, the enemy has sustained 82,554 casualties, of which 33,801 were.abandoned dead on captured ground. There are 253 prisoners. It is estimated there have been 18,500 additional enemy casualties, comprising abandoned, dead not yet collected, and those handled by the enemy within their own fines, ft also is estimated that 30,000 enemy troops, outside of crews, have been drowned or killed, from ten convoys that were totally or partially destroyed, in the enemy’s endeavour to bring in reinforcements in the 55 days of this campaign. This represents an enemy daily loss of 1500. Our casualties have been 2176 killed, 79/6 wounded, and 257 missing. AERIAL OPERATIONS Our heavy air units bombed Legaspi aerodrome. Patrol planes in the daytime destroyed three 1000-ton freighters in the Verde Passage, oft the south-west coast of Luzon Island. Others at night harassed shipping m Manila Bay without opposition. Escorted heavy units concentrated 88 tons on Bacold aerodrome, Negros, destroying four parked planes, ana cratering the runway. Other heavy units hit Larup aerodrome, Cebu. Air patrols destroyed small freighter and patrol craft in waters around Mindoro. Medium units, with fighter escort, struck San Roque aerodrome, at Zamboanga, Mindanao, damaging the runway. Patrol planes sank two coastal vessels at Sandakan, Borneo; bombed the waterfront and storage areas of Brunei Bay; and started fires at Miri petroleum installations, hitting a cracking plant. Fighter-bomb-ers ranging over the northern sector of Celebes destroyed a parked bomber on Langoan aerodrome, set a schooner on fire, and hit a powerhouse and barracks/ at Manado. Medium units of attack planes and fighters dropped 58 tons on small shipping, bivouacs, and defence and supply areas in coastal sectors of the' Moluccas and Halmahera, while ten barges were sunk or damaged, and hits were observed on gun positions and warehouses, and several fires were started. Medium units dropped 29 tons on Namlea, Laha, and Kairatoe aerodrome and related installations at Ceram and Boeroe. Others swept coastlines, attacking small craft. Air patrols bombed defended localities on Timor and on the Aroa Islands. Attack bombers neutralised the enemy-held Jefman airfield at Sarong, New Guinea. Others with heavy and medium units dropped 52 tons on enemy positions in the Wewak and Sepik River areas. Medium units with fighters destroyed a bridge and damaged buildings in New Ireland, and covered enemy concentrations on Bougainville, expending more than 35 tons of bombs. Air patrols harassed Rabaul and Wide Bay. FORWARD BASE. PEARL HARBOUR, December-15. Admiral Nimitz announced he soon was establishing his advanced headquarters in a forward area, but his main headquarters would remain at Pearl Harbour. The Associated Press points out that the capture of the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, Ulithi and Palau has permitted a moving of the centre of gravity of operations far westward to improve the effectiveness of control of ground, sea and air forces as their operations converge on Japan. Mr. Donald Nelson conferred with Admiral Nimitz en route to Washington. The Associated Press says' his visit was particularly significant against a background of repeated assertions by Admiral Nimitz that a beachhead must be established on the China coast. Mr. Nelson _ undoubtedly supplied Admiral Nimitz with latest details of the complex Chinese political and military situation. U.S.A. DESTROYER DAMAGED. NEW YORK, December 19. A United States destroyer, the Alfred W. Grant, has returned to Pearl Harbour in a damaged state, - after having been caught between the fires of United States and Japanese fleets in the Battle of the Philippines. The “New York Times” says: During an engagement the destroyer lost her steering-gear. Ammunition in her racks exploded, and steam gushed into the boiler-room. The ship’s doctor was killed and a repair party was also killed. The destroyer, with other ships, was on a torpedo mission. Members of the crew said: “We got right in the middle of the line of fire. Shrapnel sprayed our decks, and shells landed everywhere.” The battle occurred in darkness, and when dawn came other American ships came to the destroyer’s aid. BRITISH FLEET LONDON PRESS COMMENT LONDON, Dec. 15. The creation of the British Pacific Fleet is described by “The Times” in a leader as “an impressive welcome intimation of the nation’s capacity in the sixth year of war to take up what must be the principal burden of tfte coming years.” After stating that the stimulating influence of the present massive process of building up the Allied naval strength in the Far East will be felt by the Fourteenth Army in Burma, “The Times” adds: “The first however, to feel their hands strengthened will be the forces of the people of the two British Dominions in the Pacific itself. The men ol the Pacific Fleet, and their friends who follow their fortunes from this side of the globe, will be conscious that their own debt to New Zealand arid Australia is beyond calculation. They have never forgotten how in the darkest hour, the armies of the two southern Dominions left their own countries, already under the lowering menace of Japanese aggression to hold the land of bridges of the Empire in the Middle East, and, to-day they rejoice that the three communities should be linked afresh directly and powerfully and that seamen from the Mother Country should be bearing their part in. ridding the Pacific of the threat of aggression, making the land it washes finally secure for the British way of life under the southern skies.” ' U.S.A. CONGRESSMEN’S VIEWS. SYDNEY, December 15. Deep satisfaction at the news that a powerful British Fleet is to join the United States Pacific Fleet, in driving home the war against Japan was expressed here to-day by 10 members of the United States Hnusr* o f Rrrore sen tatives Sub-Comm i 11 ee on Naval Affairs. The Congresmen, who are touring the Pacific battlefront--. flew to Australia from the Admiralty Islands, and early to-day began inspecting the American naval

depdts and hospitals around Sydney. . The party includes a woman member of the House of Representatives, Miss Margaret Smith (Maine). Other’ members are Congressmen James Heffernan (New York), who is Chairman of the ■ Sub-Committee, William Rowen (Illinois). Emory Price, (Florida), James Wolfenden (Pennsylvania), Robert • Grant (California), William Blackney (Michigan), John McWilliam (Connecticut), Walter Ploeser (Missouri), and Ward Johnson (California). Captain Donald Ramsey, destroyer commander in the Coral Sea and Midway battles is the party’s liaison officer. A statement issued on behalf of the party expressed the hope for long years of friendship and cooperation between the U.S.A, and A.nstralia. Referring to the advent of the British Fleet in the Pacific, Mr. Johnson 'said that -any suggestion that the United States Navy was so powerful that it felt it could clearly lick the Japanese alone, and almost resented British assistance as “intrusion, was not the opinion of his committee. All were happy to have such a wonderful ally in the task ahead. He added that any criticism of Australia by the American isolationist Press was not representative of public opinion in the United States, and there were few isolationists among the people of America to-day. Replying to an interviewer, Representative Ploeser said: “It is a little early to comment on the question of the American base rights m this part of the world, except to say that we share common interests m the Pacific.” ROCKET- PRODUCTION WASHINGTON, December 14. t Rear-Admiral G. Hussey, Chief of the United States Naval Bureau of Ordnance, has announced that the production of rockets will soon be increased by nearly 300 per cent. The reasons for this are:—(l) The stepped-up tempo of the Pacific war, where every offensive must needs be an amphibious operation, calling for thousands of rockets. (2) The succcess of the Navy’s latest rocket. (3) The fact that the Navy is now producing Navy-type rockets for all the armed forces.

The Navy has disclosed that ah types of landing craft now lay down rocket barrages to clear the approaches to the beaches for an invasion. The total number of salvoes from the landing craft equals approximately two and a-half times the fire power of a battleship of the New Jersey class. The rockets are fired so that each salvo overlaps the previous ones, eliminating virtually ah secondary fortifications, including mines, wire, machine-gum nests, and shallow pillboxes, and temporarily stunning the larger fortifications. The Washington correspondent oi the “New Yord Herald-Tribune” re- , ports that rockets from one Hellcat division inflicted the following damage in a recent raid on Iwo Jima: —A large tanker blew up, a large warehouse completely disintegrated, six small freighters were sunk, ana were wrecked.