JAP WITHDRAWALS

Grey River Argus, 29 April 1944, Page 5

JAP WITHDRAWALS

FROM NEW GUINEA BASES Wewak Stand Expected ALLIED BOMBERS ACTIVE. (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rec 11.30.) SYDNEY. April 28. All the Japanese opposition in the Hollandia area of Dutch New’ Guinea has been overcome, and the Cyclops, and Hollandia airfields are in Allied hands. All three fields are already in operation. Demoralised and disorganised enemy troops have fled inland to the south-west.

It is believed that the Japanese may now regroup in the mountains, and then attempt a desperate coun-ter-attack. This was the pattern of the enemy strategy in the recent Admiralty Islands campaign. There invading American forces were allowed to walk in virtually unopposed, only to be attacked with great determination while they were consolidating their positions.

It was officially announced to-day l that 274 Japanese have been killed, and about two dozen have been taken prisoners, in the Hollandia operations. . The only actions which continue in the area are where Americans are in contact with scattered Japanese groups. The earlier official estimates were that fourteen thousand Japanese were garrisoned around Hollandia The estimates included three thousand Marines. These Marines are now known, to have been transferred to Wewak before the American landings.

Great quantities of stores were, however, taken at Hollandia, which showed that the Japanese had intended strengthening their garrison there. It is also now known that a large proportion of the enemy’s forces in this area comprised service troops, engineers and technicians, who were not trained fighters. The Australians, four hundred miles to the south-east, have gained a further success bv seizing Alexish'afen. They did so two days after their capture of Madang. Their northward advance is continuing unopposed. A Japanese garrison on Seki Island, off the coast, near Alexishafen. made a stubborn stand with supporting artillery and machine-gun fire. This resistance was overcome by forces landed from an American minesweeper.

The withdrawal of the Japanese forces from Bogadjim, Madang and Alexishafen suggests that the enemy is concentrating Ji’S forces (around Wewak and Hansa Bay. Both of these bases were heavily attacked from the air on Wednesday. Wewak was hit bv more than a hundred Bostons, the largest force of these attack ’planes yet engaged on a single operation in the South-west Pacific. They dropped sixty-four tons of bombs on supply dumps on Muschu Island, and on Wewak’s four aerodromes. Liberators added to the Japanese troubles by pounding the Hansa Bav supply area with two thousand-lb. bombs. Striking far to the north-west, other Liberators bombed an airfield at Sorong on the tip of Dutch New Guinea, 07 miles from Hollandia. They started large fires on an airfield and destroyed an. enemy fighter attempting a take off. Ten barges laden with fullv-armed troops were sunk in the same area, while another barge was sent on to a reef by strafing. Remarkable success attended a single Liberator operating over Mqnokwari, 475 miles north-west of Hollandia. The Liberator sank two freighters and then set fire to two fishing vessels and finally shot down an enemv bomfibffi A pre-dawn attack bv Solomo*'- 0 - based bombers on Truk in the Carolines is reported by General MacArthur’s communique to-day. At Nomoi, the Satawan airfield was attacked, while at Oleai, fires, were started.

Rabaul,. in New Britain, continues to receive its daily pounding. Lakunai airfield was attacked with forty tons of bombs. One Allied ’plane was shot down, but the pilot was saved.

(1030 PLANE RAIDS NOW. (Rec. 5.50) WASHINGTON, April 27. The Assistant Secretary to the Navy for Air. Mr. Artemus Oates, tol'.i the press: “I do not think that the public realises that wo. have been having thousand plane raids m the Pacific. We have been building up all the time, until now raids in which one thousand planes are used are noi uncommon.” JAP. “MONEY.” “AUSTRALIAN” NOTES FOUND. SYDNEY, April 28. Two war correspondents gave away about £20,000 to United States troops in a village near Hollandia. The money was in parcels of “Australian’ bank notees printed by the Japanese in readiness for their invasion of Australia. The correspondents found thousands of packages of banknotes in the Japanese Colonel’s residence. They crammed their pockets and then went to meet an incoming American patrol. So keen were the Americans on acquiring the souvenir “money” that the correspondents were all out of pocket in a few minutes.