MAZE OF DEFENCES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 22, 24 December 1942, Page 5

MAZE OF DEFENCES

ALLIED PROGRESS SLOW

HARD FIGHTING IN PAPUA (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, Dec. 23. Desperate fighting continues in Papua as the Allies endeavour to' batter the fiercely-disputed way through the Japanese defensive network of pill-boxes, trenches, and barricades. Our progress is slow.

In the capture of Cape Endiadere and the subsequent advance against Buna airfield and Buna Mission, more than 100 separate fortified strongpoints were overcome. There seems no' prospect of a Japanese collapse. The ultimate annihilation of the garrison is certain, but while the Allied employment of tanks should hasten the inevitable end, a maze of defensive works still remains to be crushed. Many months of arduous work evidently went into the construction of the Buna-Gona fortress, which now is reduced in size to less than three square miles. General MacArthur's communique to-day admits that the "intricate and thoroughly prepared positions of the enemy have made our progress relatively slow," but the vicious and fanatical suicide stand of the Japanese garrison has been the main delaying factor. In spite of the apparent shortage of food and ammunition, the enemy troops have not cracked under the relentless aerial and artillery bombardments and tank assaults, though lacking anti-tank guns, they are now using Molotov cocktails, magnetic bombs, and heavy mortars,'as well as flame-throwers, as defensive weapons against our tanks. Enemy soldiers carrying bombs have throwri themselves under the tracks of tanks in vain efforts to halt them. To delay our infantry, anti-personnel mines were laid, but Allied sappers have been, able to clear passages through the fields.

MIGHTY STRUGGLE AHEAD. Japanese snipers are active both in front of and behind our advance, and enemy ambushes are frequent. In spite of complete control of the- air and artillery superiority, combined with the use of General Stuart tanks, Allied troops still face a mighty struggle before the last Japanese is evicted from Papua. While the Americans fight for Buna airfield, the Australians push on towards the Buna Mission, and a combined force has been steadily closing in on the enemy at Sanananda. American troops waded chest-deep through thick black mud to gain the rear of the Japanese positions which baited our advance. It was found that the enemy had constructed machine-gun pasts even in the twain]) itself. The Allied force is now within two miles of the coast at Sanananda, having gained aboui; half a mile of fiercely-contested ground in the past few days. Two enemy trucks loaded with ammunition were captured in the Sanananda area. This was a severe loss to the enemy, whose prospects of securing additional supplies have now faded to vanishing point.