JAPANESE AT MUBO

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21142, 9 July 1943, Page 3

JAPANESE AT MUBO

ALLIED THREAT HARD BATTLE LIKELY AIR & LAND SUPERIORITY (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent:)' (10.30 a,m.) SYDNEY, July 9. The immediate object of the campaign being fought around Salamaua, the Japanese base in northern New Guinea, seems to be the elimination of the enemy forces, which are now in danger of being bottled up in the nearby hinterland area of MuboKomiatum. Broken only by isolated skirmishes, the deadlock in this sector has persisted since last February.

The latest report indicates that Allied strategy is making favourable progress. Australians in the Bobdubi area dominate the narrow valley Ihrough which passes the. Komiatum track, which is now the supply route from Salamaua for the Japanese forces around Mubo. The Americans continue to consolidate their position.-: in Nassau Bay. They are using artillery. Compared with the numbers thrown into the engagements, the Australian and American forces have inflicted substantial casualties on the Japanese. They have forced the enemy entirely on the defensive. But although the Japanese have made no determined offensive move, heavier fighting is anticipated. Strong forces garrison both Salamaua and Lae—and beyond these bases lie Madang and Wewak, reservoirs from which Ihc Japanese can draw powerful reinforcements. The movement of such forces would considerably be assisted by the use of barges, of which the Japanese have a considerable number parked in the waters of Labu Lagoon, near Lae. For months this barge park has been under persistent Allied air attack.

“The enemy’s strength in barges is Itnown to be a big menace,” writes an Australian war correspondent in New Guinea. “This barge traffic is not only soundly based but well organ • ised and could be availed of to push swift reinforcements at any of the points the enemy .has retained in face of our advancing forces.” Enemy Airfields Useless

Offsetting the enemy’s power cl' reinforcement is the Allied air superiority which allows our aircraft to attack Japanese positions whenever the weather permits. The enemy airfields at Salamaua and Lae have been so persistently hammered that they are now used only as staging fields for aircraft based out of range o r Allied medium bombers. In the skirmishes that have so far taken place in the area, the Japane.-e have clearly met their masters at jungle fighting. Thus, the Allied air and ground superiority augurs ill for Hie Japanese at Mubo —whatever may lie ahead in the subsequent fighting. Australian machine-guns at Bobdubi tire ranged along the enemy’s solitary supply line from Salamaua. So rough is the country that large carrier parties will be required to bring forward stores. These would have to move along the track at night, running a grave risk of ambush. Mubo has no native garden to help to solve the problem. The native name for the area, “tambu,” meaning taboo, shows what the natives think of it. “In this area the scenes of the Kokoda trail are being repeated again,” writes a war correspondent “Our men at Bobdubi walked for days over a track incredibly slippery with mud and dank with perpetual mist. The track snaked up and down high mountains. Our soldiers cursed the track —but they cursed even more strongly the Japanese who made them walk it. If any spur was needed to increase their enthusiasm to attack (he Japanese, then this track provided it.”