JAP. BOMBING GROWS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20770, 21 May 1942, Page 5

JAP. BOMBING GROWS

PACIFIC FRONT

PORT MORESBY ASSAULTS / (By Telegraph—Preaa Assn. —Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (10.30 a.m.) i SYDNEY. May 21. No combat activity occurred in the south-west Pacific war zone yesterday. Allied operations were limited to reconnaissance, states the thirty-third communique issued by General MacArthur’s headquarters. This is the second “all quiet” report during the past week, but otnei daily communiques recount that the air war over New Guinea is continuing with undiminished intensity. As well as Messerschmitt 109 type fighters, the Japanese now are using a new 99 type of heavy army bomber, a long-nosed machine whicn is stated to be the reply to America’s “Hying fortress.” American fighter pilots, rowever, do not regard Japan’s latest bomber as comparable with the “flying fortress.” a raid this week when 10 new enemy bombers flew in tight formation resulted in Allied fighters shooting down two without loss to themselves. Heaviest Attack Yet Port Moresby has now had 52 raids. The first raid was made on February ' 3. In the latest raid the Japanese employed 34 heavy bombers, with an escort of 15 Zero fighters, when more than 200 bombs were dropped. It was the heaviest attack yet made on this principal 1 outpost *of Australian defence: ■ Most of the bombs dropped were anti-personnel of the “daisy light. Only one service casualty was caused. Military commentators continue to emphasise that the growing weight of his air attacks against Port Moresby is an expression of the enemy’s determination to remove this flanking menace before continuing his southward aggression. The newspapers editorially stress the need for still more men, guns, ships and planes in the south-west Pacific. “Japan is mobilising sea, land and air power close to the United StatesAustralia supply route,” states the Daily Telegraph. “That done, she will turn on us with what we have and what America has sent us. We would fight hard—-but it would be a desperate defensive fight.” No Grounds for Pessimism The fact that Australia and New Zealand are the only south-west Pacific bases from which Japan can be attacked is also emphasised. “If now that the Allies have deliberately chosen Australia and New Zealand as their south-west Pacific base —there is pone other left—Australia should be eliminated, then the war in the Pacific may be lost,” says the Sydney Morning Herald in an editorial. “There are no grounds for pessimism, however. We are vastly stronger than we were three months ago.” The growing realisation by Britain of the importance of the Pacific war is also favourably commented upon. The declaration by the Deputy Prime Minister, Major Attlee, that Australia must be reinforced, “comes as proof of the indissolubility of the ties of Empire and the glory of the cause for which it and the Allies stand,” says the Sydney Sun.