Many Raids by MacArthur’s Bombers

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 60, 12 March 1943, Page 5

Many Raids by MacArthur’s Bombers

(By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) Received Thursday, 9.45 p.m. SYDNEY, Mar. 11. Japanese shipping at various bases along the thousand-mile arc north oi Australia was attacked by Allied aircraft on Wednesday. The presence oi enemy vessels at widely dispersed points indicates that the Japanese are still reinforcing their perimeter outposts. Most of the Allied raids reported were on a small scale. Six Japanese vessels were bombed or strafed in attacks extending from Banda Sea to the north coast of New Guinea. At Wewak, 350 miles northwest oi Lae, near misses with 10001 b. bombs were scored against two medium-sizea cargo ships, one ship of 5000 tons being severely damaged. At Boetong Island, in the Southeast Celebes, a direct hir was scored on a 7000-ton cargo ship which was left burning and probably became a total loss. At Boeroe Island, west of Amboina, two cargo ships were bombed with unobserved results. At Regola (Sermat Island, in the Tenimber Group), a coastal vessel was strafed and damaged. The heaviest Allied attack was made by Flying Fortresses against Wewak, the enemy base in Northern New Guinea which is assuming increasing importance. Besides striking at shipPing in the harbour, our bombers attacked warehouses. Liberators made raids on enemy shipping north of Australia. It is reported at General MacArthur’s Headquarters to-day that life-rafts, carrying the bodies of Japanese who perished in the Bismarck Sea battle have been sighted off the coast oi Northeast Papua. A two-knot current flowing from the Bismarck Sea no doubt accounts for the presence of the rafts in this area. An enemy bomber reconnoitring Trobriand Island in the same locality was shot down by our fighters. American war correspondents in this theatre continue to urge on the United States the need for air reinforcements in the Southwest Pacific. Stating that during the Bismarck Sea battle, Major-General Kenney’s “comparatively slender resources were stretched to the utmost, ’’ the Christian Science Monitor’s representative here, E. W. Lucas, asks: “What if two convoys from different points of the compass had approached New Guinea instead of only one?” The powerful Hearst Press Is reported to be running a vigorous campaign urging increased assistance for the American forces in the Southern Pacific and suggesting that one week’s entire United States aircraft production should he devoted to this theatre. However, the Hearst Press has been so notoriously anti-administration and so consistent in its sniping at President Roosevelt that Australian observers m the United States believe its advocacy of the cause of this theatre may prove an embarrassment and merely provoke a stiffening of the present Washington attitude which minimises the danger oi the continued Japanese southward aggression.