JAPS. LURED OUT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20862, 14 August 1942, Page 3

JAPS. LURED OUT

KOKODA RECAPTURED AUSTRALIANS’ GUILE FIGHTER-BOMBERS USED (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (9.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 14. “A number of the enemy liquidated • —many perforated,” was the laconic message received by headquarters from the command of the Australian land forces which made a successful raid on Kokoda, Papua, last Sunday. By guileful strategy the Japanese were dispossessed of Kokoda village. The commander organised three separate thrusts to draw out the Japanese and then, when the enemy had been enticed out of Kokoda, the Australian force which had remained in hiding in the jungle, re-entered the village without a shot being fired. However, confused fighting was known to be continuing on Monday night. The Japanese, after their initial mistake, are hit.ting back vigorously. A big force of Airocobra fighters, each carrying a medium bomb, closely supported the Kokoda operations, dive-bombing and strafing enemy positions and silencing machine-gun posts. A former Kokoda patrol officer, now in the army assisted to pick out objectives for .the planes and marked his own house as target No. 1. This was the first time in the south-west Pacific that fighters had been used as bombers-and .the results are stated to have been highly satisfactory. Each of the Australian patrol forces killed and wounded many of the enemy. The Allied casualties were light.