CAUTIOUS ADVANCE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 263, 6 October 1942, Page 5

CAUTIOUS ADVANCE

AUSTRALIANS IN PAPUA NOW BEYOND EFOGI (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, Oct. 5.

Forward detachments of Australian troops are beyond the entrance to Hell’s Gap, which

crosses the highest point in the Owen Stanley Range. Our advance is proceeding cautiously in anticipation of encountering a stubborn stand by the Japanese. If this does not eventuate within the next 48 hours it is almost certain that our troops will be able to drive down the steep northern slopes of the mountains to Kokoda without opposition.

The immediate main Australian objective is Kagi, about six miles beyond Efogi and the last village south of the ranges on the highest point. The latest communique from General MacArthur’s Headquarters says: “Our drive still continues and Allied and Kittyhawk fighters are strafing and harrying key points along the enemy’s line of retreat.” If the Japanese do not give battle in the Kagi-Myola sector it is increasingly felt that they are likely to withdraw to the rolling country well beyond the ranges on the northern side of the Kumusi River bridge at .Wairopi, the fatal bottleneck in the enemy supply line. The Australian Ifncs of supply might then be so attenuated that our forces would he unable to push the enemy further back. However, since General MacArthur’s headquarters earlier described the advance as a “limited offensive” it does seem possible that the present drive is intended to do no more than dispossess the Japanese of the ranges and reoccupy our previous defensive positions, with our forward posts near Kokoda and our main line along the summit of the ranges. The General Headquarters spokesman to-day, in a cautious appraisal of the situation, said isolated groups of Japanese had offered slight resistance to our advance, but so far the enemy has made no organised attempt to fight a rearguard action. The Australian forces continued to move carefully to avoid ambushes with units deployed to protect their flanks. WHAT IS ENEMY’S PLAN ? Too much speculation at this stage on the reasons for the withdrawal, which has evidently been made at a faster rate than the

enemy cun be pursued, would not be prudent. Some observers, however, now suggest that the Japanese are finding New Guinea and the Solomons campaigns too much to handle at the same time, and they may temporarily abandon the former in order to concentrate all their strength against the American-held islands of the South-Eastern Solomons.

Supporting this theory, -the Sydney Morning Herald’s war correspondent suggests that the reason for the enemy’s possible abandonment of the Owen Stanley front might be traced as far back as the last week in August when our heavy destruction of grounded fighter planes on the Buna airfield proved the impracticability of his trying to hold that area as a counter-base to Port Moresby. Ihe present Japanese withdrawal must result in heavier concentrations of enemy troops and supplies in Northern Papua, thus increasing their vulnerability to unceasing Allied air attacks—unless Japan can speedily muster sufficient planes for their protection.