SQUEEZING JAPS

Grey River Argus, 19 May 1944, Page 5

SQUEEZING JAPS

IN NORTH NEW GUINEA

Heads Trying to Get Away

(Rec. 10.45) SYDNEY, May 18. The first contact with remnants of the Japanese Eighteenth Army trapped m British New Guinea is announced from the Aitape sector. There Americans have encountered enemy outpost positions thirty-four miles to the souin-east of their beach-head. Japanese forces are thus being squeezed between Australians moving up the coast frpm Alexishafen and Americans driving from Aitape. Allied air forces are co-operating by attacking enemy troop concentrations, supplies and lines of communication along the coast. The strongest of the air attacks in the South-west Pacific theatre continue to be directed against the Japanese airfields and bases in Western Dutch New Guinea. Despite uncertain weather for several days, an Allied air offensive is being driven home within a radius of more than four hundred air miles from Hollandia. A sixth attack within ten days was made on the enemy’s Wakde Island—Sami defences last Tuesday. Aerodromes and defence installations were hit in continued softening-up strikes. A night attack on Sorido ,airneld, Biak Island, Geelvink Bay, was followed on Tuesday by a daylight raid on supply dumps at Mokmer, nearby burning dumps blanketed the area with smoke.

American patrols on Bougainville Island, in North Solomons, found 250 .dead Japanese in an abandoned hospital located north-east of the United States Torokina perimeter. Sustained Allied air attacks are frustrating [Japanese attemps to escape from the Wewak—Hansa Bay area of British New Guinea. It is believed that the evacuation by air of high ranking enemy officers has been nipped in the bud. The Japanese have macle efforts to lay down emergency airstrips for use by. transport planes. These have been in vain. Repeated bombing raids, have destroyed almost-com-pleted work. Possible attempts to make a hazardous escape by sea have been prevented by destruction of bai’ges. Twelve of these craft were destroyed in the latest attacks on i Wewak reported by General MacArthur’s communique to-day. , Two young Japanese women, dressed in military uniform, have (been killed in a clash between American and Japanese patrols in Dutch [New Guinea. The women were memibers of an enemy combat party encountered near the Allied-held Hollandia airfield. American soldiers said that until they examined the Japanese casualties they did not realise that women were among the patrol. Survivors of the enemy party were scattered by American fire. It is now believed they may have included (Other Japanese girls.

22 U.S. AIRMEN.

SAVED OFF TRUK.

NEW YORK, May 18.

The “New York Times’s” Pearl Harbour correspondent says: The United States submarine “Tang” has arrived at Pacific Fleet Headquarters carrying twenty-two flight officers and airmen. They have been rescued from the sea during the two-'day task strike against Truk last month. The “Tang” was on patrol. The submarine received a radio message to attempt the rescue of the airmen. The “Tang” moved cautiously through reefy waters, skirted island' shore batteries, paused once to chase an enemy submarine, and then ran back and forth along the entire southern range of the island group collecting the company of airmen, who otherwise would have drifted .out to sea or fallen into Japanese hands. PEARL HARBOUR ECHO (Rec. 10.45) WASHINGTON, May 18. Mr Josephus Daniels, who was Secretary of the Navy during the Great War, told a House of Representatives Post-war Policy Committee: “The Japanese could hot have made December 7, 1941, a day of infamy if the General and Admiral charged with the duty of preparedness and vigilance had not been asleep at the switch at Pearl Harbour.” He added: “The Pearl Harbour calamity was due to the divided command in the Hawaiian area, and is convincing proof that perfect ' cohesion of the fighting forces must I replace the two arms working separately without co-ordination. The 1 jealousy and friction between . the two armed services in Hawaii and elsewhere was the old story. History is replete with squabbles between the Army and Navy which prolong wars.”