Desperate Plight of Japs in New Guinea

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 125, 30 May 1944, Page 5

Desperate Plight of Japs in New Guinea

Stiff Fighting on Biak Island (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) Received Monday, 11.10 p.m. SYDNEY, May 29. The plight of the Japanese Eigh teenth Army trapped between Wewak and Hollandia on the north coast of New Guinea is becoming increasingly desperate. According to official closures this force, once estimated at 60,000 strong, is evidently running short of food and other supplies. The incessant aerial assault during the past few weeks has taken heavy toll of the enemy’s store dumps. Allied # patrols and New Guinea natives are making daily reports of large numbers of Japanese dead and dying along the jungle trails and at native villages in the interior.

General MacArthur’s communique to day reports that one Allied pzttrol killed 59 Japanese and found another 300 dead. “Our operations in the wakde-Sarmi area jeopardise the only possible escape route,” adds the com munique. “A realisation of their fate has apparently broken the enemy’•« morale and his forces in the trapped area in New Guinea are beginning to disintegrate into straggling groups seeking only food and escape.” The Japanese garrison at Maffin Bay on the New Guinea mainland near Wakde Island is still disputing possession of Mafiin airfield. American troops on Saturday captured an important hill a mile from the airstrip. This hill dominates the area.

Other Japanese units trapped in the coastal sector between Hollandia and Wakde have been heavily attacked by Allied air patrols which caused severe casualties.

The Japanese are making a desperate bid to save Biak Island off the west coast of Dutch New Guinea *rom capture by the strong American invasion force. The defending garrison is bitterly resisting the American drive inland while Japanese bombers and fight ers have attacked Allied shipping and oeachhead positions. Nine enemy aircraft have been shot down. One Japanese fighter falling in flames crashed into an American submarine chaser, causing damage and casualties. Of the first wave of 60 Japanese planes which attacked the American troops as they landed on the beach four were shot down by a lone Thunderbolt pilot. Later 12 enemy planes bombed the invasion convoy. A withering anti-aircraft barrage brought down four of them and the remainder broke off the attack. Liberators blasting a way for the American ground forces dropped 288 tons of explosives on Japanese gun positions and other defence installations. Escorting Thunderbolts with Boston attack planes strafed the ground defences around Mokmar, the most important of the three aerodromes on Diak Island. One plane was brought down by anti-aircraft fire, but the crew was saved. The latest reports from Field Headquarters on Biak Island state tnat the Americans were within two and a-half miles of Mokmar airfield. They were battling ahead against fierce enemy resistance. Two hundred Javanese labourers have been rescued by the Americans on Biak.