AT ALEXISHAFEN

Grey River Argus, 3 May 1944, Page 5

AT ALEXISHAFEN

WHAT AUSTRALIANS FOUND. SYDNEY, May 2. Mines and booby traps laid with great cunning have slowed down the Australian advance in the Alexishafen area on the north coast of New Guinea. Most of the mines and booby traps are in combination of antipersonnel mines, linked with aerial or mortar .bombs. They have a deadly effect, and the manner in which they have been laid proves that the Japanese evacuation from Alexishafen was carefully planned. The Australians occupied Alexishafen on Wednesday, 24 hours after capturing Madang. nine miles to the south. Already the area has been “deloused” of hundreds of mines and booby traps. The Australians, probing several miles to the north-west, have not yet contacted organised enemy forces. A classic piece of Japanese wanton destruction in New Guinea' is the Roman Catholic mission station at Alexishafen. The church has been flattened. In its centre lies a large copper cross just where it fell when the steeple collapsed. The mission school is now a skelton framework of wooden uprights. The Japanese stripped it of the walls and furnishings. Alexishafen took a terrific pounding from Allied bombers, but an Australian war correspondent in the area reports that the damage done by the bombing was “like a clean surgical incision compared with the havoc and incomprehensible filth left in the wake of the retreating enemy.” Alexishafen Harbour is also a shambles. What _ remains of the wharf swings crazily on shattered piles, while the harbour’s edge is littered with abandoned equipment and debris blown into the sea by the force of the Allied bombings. Among the enemy dead at Alexishafen were found the bodies of several geisha girls. Geisha establishments further down the coast at Madang were evidently on a big scale judged by the quantity and assortment of the material found.