NEW GUINEA COAST

Grey River Argus, 1 July 1944, Page 5

NEW GUINEA COAST

JAPS HOLD 150 MILES

Allied Forces Closing on

Them

(Special to N.Z. Fre« Assn.) (Rec. i. 0.10.) SYDNEY, June 30. The remnants of tnree Japanese - visions still hold 150 mll They North New Guinea coastline. Ihy are trapped between the Aust a la, who have now crossed the Sepik k er, and Americans who are about. 3 miles south-east of Aitap . Japanese troops comprise almost ex clusively infantrymen, iheie is no evidence of anv large scale withdraw--al of enemy troops from this The destruction of twenty bulges along this part of the coast is reported by. General MacArthur s coni munlque to-day. R.A.A.F. Beaut'gtters were responsible for inflicting the greater part of! the losses. .. . Liberators made a seventh daylight raid on Yap, seventy-five miles nortn of New Guinea, and 670 miles from Saipan.. They caused considerable damage to installations, as well as destroying two parked aircraft. Wit out loss to themselves, f he Liberators shot down two out of t . T? e Y en in ' terceptors. Five oths~ damaged. , , A war correspondent on Biak Island, Dutch New Guinea, reports: Enemy soldiers on the island, fortified witn opium sake, have suffered “grandiose illusions, abo'ut their invulnerability to Allied bullets,” with the result that: they have been slaughtered. Opium smoking equipment has been found on the bodies of many Japanese, killed on Biak. . .■ f The death is reported, in action, ot the veteran Dutch flier, LieutenantColonel F. J. Roller, aged 42, commander of a Mitchell squadron. After 'eading his squadron on fifteen operational flights, he was- shot dowm While attacking enemy shipping in Netherlands East Indies waters. Three enemy ships were destroyed in the attack. Roller went to the Netherlands East Indies from Holland in 1926. He played an important part in organising the Dutch Air Forcce there. He has’ been! decorated bv Queen Wilhelmina.