HALMAHERA AGAIN

Grey River Argus, 17 August 1944, Page 4

HALMAHERA AGAIN

TARGET FOR MACARTHUR’S iBOMBERS

(Rec. 8.0) SYDNEY, Aug. 16. Bombers of General MacArthur’s Command are maintaining a relentless hammering of the Japanese stronghold of Halmahera Island on the road from New Guinea t.o the Philippines. In spite of bad weather, Liberators and Mitbhells on Monday attacked vital enemy installations and warehouses there. At Ternate, off the west coast of Halmahera. a great explosion was followed by a four thousand feet column of smoke. It may have been caused by a direct hit on a bomb dump. Heavy anti-aircraft fire was encountered. All the raiders returned. ■ To-day’s South-west Pacific communlqu? also reports that patrolling Mitchells sank eight sailing boats off the north-west coast of Ceram on Monday. . Use of sailing boats may indicate a growing Japanese shipping shortage. Five members of Marshal Chiang Kai-shek’s army have been rescued from Japanese in New Guinea. They were found by Americans on the Driniumbr River line facing General Adachi’s Japanese Eighteenth Army. The Chinese had been taken prisoner in the battle of Shantung (China) and were impressed into labour units and sent to New Guinea a year ago. They were given scant rations and inadequate medical attention. They were forced to do heavy manual tasks. When American ground and air blows disorganised the Japanese, the prisoners seized the first opportunity to escane. The official statement of American casualties in British New Guinea is as follows: 285 killed, 999 wounded, and 23 missing. Enemy casualties are stated to be at least fourteen times as great.