JAVANESE ENCOUNTERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 December 1945, Page 5

JAVANESE ENCOUNTERS

ALLIED CASUALTIES.

LONDON, December 21. The Netherlands Navy reports that a 60-ton wooden motor-ship displaying the Red Cross insignia fired on a Dutch party landing from a destroyer off Billiton Island last Friday. One Dutch signalman was killed. One officer and one Indian were killed and three Indians were wounded while clearing road-blocks south of Semarang, says a British statement. Local police co-operated in clearing- a village in the Buitenzorg area, but the Indonesian leaders appeared uncompromising in discussions. Troops in Batavia dispersed a mob of potential looters. The situation was otherwise quiet. Air Commodore C. A. Stevens, who led the first raid against Mannheim on Christmas Eve, 1917, has been appointed Air Officer Commanding the Royal Air Force in the Netherlands East Indies, says the Air Ministry News Service. The Allied commander in Southeast Asia (Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey) has arrived at Batavia from Singapore on his third visit to Java.

DUTCH REFUGEES IN N.Z.

NEW PLYMOUTH, December 21. Buildings at the New Plymouth airport which were occupied by the Royal New Zealand Air Force until recently have been taken over by the Netherlands Government, and will be used to accommodate Dutch families who will arrive in New Zealand next month from internment camps in the East Indies. The number of evacuees who will be accommodated at New Plymouth in the early stages of the scheme is not yet known, but it is expected that by the middle of the year there will be between 300 and 400 persons living in the buildings.