ALL WIPED OUT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 22 May 1944, Page 2

ALL WIPED OUT

JAPS. ON WAKDE ISLAND. (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Rec. 12.3-5 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 22. The Japanese garrison trapped on Wakde Island, off the coast of Dutch New Guinea, were wiped out after grim fighting. No prisoners were taken. The enemy troops displayed amazing toughness and resiliency, despite heaviest preliminery air and naval bombardment yet delivered in the South-West Pacific. The campaign which captured Wakdcwas the brieiest in the series which have jrushed thq, Japanese steadily' west in Dutch Ne\>’ Guinea. American troops landed on the island on Thursday and the annihilation of the enemy was completed shortly before dusk on Friday. General MacArthur’s Headquarters report that the Japanese casualties were 550 killed. The American casualties were 16 killed, 83 wounded, and two missing. A war correspondent who accompanied the Americans says that the Japanese on Wakde fought as fanatically as in any of the earlier New Guinea campaigns. Elements of the Japanese 36th Division, which participated in the capture of Singapore, garrisoned the island. They wci e supplemented by members of a sharpshooter company. Most of the American casualties wore inflicted by enemy snipers. In contrast with their earlier poor reputation as marksmen, the aim of the Japanese sharpshooters was unerring. Many of the rifles and grenades used by the enemy garrison were Australian and thoy also used American machine-guns. Besides being perhaps the most spectacular of the recent operations in the South-West Pacific, Wakde also proved one of the toughest. The Japanese casualties in the Hollan-din-Aitape sector have now risen to 3042. General MacArthur’s communique to-day reports the killing of 436 enemy stragglers and the capture of 45. At Wakde Island 676 Japanese dead have been counted, and the total is still mounting. On the mainland in the Sarmi area scattered enemy elements attempting to ma.ko counter-attacks have been defeated with more than 100 killed. The widespread attacks on the Japanese bases throughout New Guinea continue.

Tt is notv reported that Friday’s raid oil Manokwari resulted in the destruction of five enemy coastal vessels. Two other Japanese ships were severely damaged when bombers from the Solomons raided Nomoi (Carslino Islands) at Lamolrek (540 miles west Of Nomoi). Nino enemy floatplanes were destroyed.