JAP SHIPPING

Grey River Argus, 10 June 1943, Page 5

JAP SHIPPING

ATTACKED ON TUESDAY In Harbour and Convoy EIGHT BASES VISITED. [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.l (Rec. 10.35) SYDNEY, June 9. Flying more than fourteen hundred miles on a round trip, a small force of General MacArthur’s Liberators on Tuesday; attacked Japanese shipping at Waingapu, Subma Island, in the Netherlands East'lndies. They scored two damaging near misses with 5001 b bombs against a five-thousand-ton cargo vessel. Intense anti-aircraft fire was encountered from the ships in the harbour, and from the shore batteries.

Waingapu may have been the base from which the Japanese aircraft last month made two raids on Exmouth Gulf, in Western Australia. It has a small airfield, and its sheltered harbour waters make it a suitable seaplane base. Over the Bismarck Sea area, a Liberator, on reconnaissance, sighted and attacked a small enemy convoy, thirty-five miles from Kavieng. JNo hits were reported. The convoy was one comprising four merchantmen of between four thousand and five thousand tons with a gunboat escort. The convoy’ was probably bound for Rabaul. There is steady passage of enemy vessels between Kavieng and Rabaul.

With a maintained improvement in the weather conditions throughout the South-west Pacific area on Tuesday’, Allied aircraft were over eight enem’i] bases. Kaimana and Babo in Dutch New Guinea; Dilli and Koepang on Timor Island; Cape Gloucester in New 1 Britain were.all bombed. The heaviest attack was made on Babo, where a night raid on the aerodrome" and supply dump area caused explosions, which rocked the Allied planes at six thousand feet. In support of the Australian troops who are fighting around Mubo, Beaufighters strafed buildings and supply trails at Komiatum.

Both Sides Preparing [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.l SYDNEY, June i. World opinion is hardening to the view that both the Allies and Japan are preparing for major blows that will end the long period of relatively small-scale warfare in the Pacific. A report from America indicates wide belief that the Allies will attempt a campaign to regain Rabaul and push the Japanese back to their central Pacific bastion, Truk. However, the Christian Science Monitor’s South-* west Pacific correspondent, W. -E. Lucas, expresses doubts whether it would be possible for MacArthur’s forces to- roll back the Japanese to Truk, by the re-conquest of Rabaul, and the intervening enemy bases. Island by island advance north and north-east of Australia, declares Lucas, would be so costly in men, judging by Guadalcanar that it could hardly be contemplated, even it we had the manpower to push it through. Any MacArthur expedition against Rabaul. he points out, would be forced to run the gauntlet of a great series of enemy airfields from Bougainville, Northern Solomons, to Wewak, north-east of New Guinea, which must first be reduced by’ the Allies.

Mr. Lucas agrees that a big Pacific clash is now being prepared for, but believes the Allied effort will be a sweeping affair involving a major fleet battle or sudden thrust at some vital nerve centre behind the Japanese front lines. Mr. Lucas thinks that Tokio will probably attempt to make an Allied total victory too costly, hoping to obtain a favourable compromise peace. He warns that the danger of an invasion of Northern Australia, particularly Darwin, has not passed. Japan to obtain negotiated peace must have bargaining counters and one of these is the manner in which she is strengthening her conquests north of Australia, to a point where it would be a Herculean task to penetrate them. While the Japanese line stretching from Timor to Northern Solomons is primarily defensive- it could also permit an offensive against Darwin, in the hopes of eliminating the only Allied base pointing towards Timor. This would allow further enemy offensives against Port. Moresby, and Milne Bay to eliminate the possible threat to Rabaul. „ “Such enemy offensives are wen withm the power of Japanese forces known to be within the arc covering Northern Australia.,” writes Lucas. “Even with reinforcements for Australia agreed upon at the recent Washington conferences it is probable the Japanese would be able to assemble greater air strength in the South-west Pacific than MacArthur could muster.” It is doubtful, says Lucas, whether the fact that MacArthur could get aerial and other support from Admiral Halsey would tip the balance in Allied favour.