BRILLIANT WORK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 39, 14 January 1944, Page 5

BRILLIANT WORK

AUSTRALIAN PATROLS ACTIVITY IN NEW GUINEA (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Rec. 11.15 a.m.) SYDNEY. Jan. 14. Brilliant patrol work by selected Australian units' is proving an important, factor in speeding the ivar in the South-West Pacific.

For months one special force in the Ramu Valley (New Guinea) has been detached from the main body of the Australian forces and has operated behind the Japanese lines. Supplies have been dropped to them from the air. These are the men who early in the war against Japan won renown as famous commandos of Timor. For many months they made harassing raids from a secret base in the hinterland of the island. Their activities provoked the Japanese to offer lavish rewards for their betrayal. In recent months the unit has roamed behind the Japanese lines in New Guinea. As well as gaining invaluable reconnaissance information, its men have killed about 100 Japanese with small loss to themselves. Their scouts were the first to supply information about the dispositions in the Finisterre Ranges. These enemy positions _ are now under attack by the main Australian force.

One of the unit's most notable patrol exploits has been to cross the Finisterre Ranges and 'reach within a dozen miles of the important Japanese coastal supply base of Bogadjim, only 20 miles below Madnng. The patrol took a month to accomplish its mission. LIEUTENANT'S ACTION.

News has just been released of a brilliant South-West Pacific sea patrol exploit. It tells how, four nights before the United States marines landed at Cape Gloucester (New Britain) on Boxing Day, an Australian naval man landed on a Japanese held beach. He is Lieut. E. Howitt, of Brisbane, and formerly the captain of an administration yacht operating from Rabaul and now attached to the American patrol torpedo-boat units as a pilot. To prepare the way for the Cape Gloucester invasion. Howitt led a convov of tornedo-boat.s to a point near the airstrips, where one land ins was later made. For three hours during the mVht members of the convoy took sonndings and located hidden reefs. The aecomnlishment of their mission was largely responsible for the bloodless nature of initial- landings.

It is now officially renorted_ that the total American casualties _ at Cape Gloucester since the landings are 400 killed, wounded, or mi>sing, compared with 2400 counted Japanese dead and a great number of wounded.