Important Stepping Stone to Philippines

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 220, 16 September 1944, Page 5

Important Stepping Stone to Philippines

Good Progress Being Made on the Halmaheras (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received Friday, 10.20 p.m. SYDNEY, Sept. 15. Allied forces have landed on the Halmahera group, an important stepping-stone to the Philippines. The landing was announced in a special communique broadcast to-day from Southwest Pacific Advanced Headquarters. The landing was made at Morotai, the most northerly of the Halmahera Islands, and it is understood that a strong beachhead has been established. The Japanese were taken completely by surprise, and the Allied, ground losses so far have been light. The spearhead of General MacArthur ’s offensive has thus been brought within 260 miles of the Philippines. The new landing follows weeks of careful intensive softenlng-up assaults by bombers and fighters against airfields and sealanes in the area. To-day’s ordinary communique from General MacArthur’s Headquarters does not mention the landing, but gives details of a further heavy pounding of Morotai by Southwest Pacific bombers, bringing the bombload dropped on Halmahera in four days to 350 tons. The airfield installation was blown up and the whole area covered with highexplosive and fragmentation bombs. There was no enemy fighter opposition. The great blows delivered by the American naval task force against Japanese shipping, aircraft and installations in the Philippines during the past few days is now seen as a cover for the most important territorial advance yet made in the Southwest Pacific. Morotai is of vital strategic importance to the Japanese. It dominates the approaches to Kaoe Bay, Halmahera’s chief shipping centre. Thus the landing by General MacArthur’s forces appears to have isolated tile main Japanese strength on the Halmahera Islands from possible seaborne reinforcement and supply. Southwest Pacific bombers have also been active in neutralising the areas from wlxich assistance might be sent to the Japanese in the Halmaheras. The main attack reported to-day was on the Northern Celebes, where more than 1500 tons of bombs have been dropped during the past fortnight. In the latest raid, with 160 tons of bombs, airstrips were cratered and waterfront installations at the big enemy base of Manado were left burning. Japanese small shipping in the Celebes and in the Ceram-Boeroe area was also smashed. No enemy fighter opposition to these raids was encountered. The latest reports say that General MacArthur himself is on Morotai, having followed the first wave of assault troops ashore. The text of the special communique which announced the landing is: “We have landed in the Halmaheras, 300 miles beyond New Guinea. Our ground forces, under cover of naval and air bombardment, seized beachheads on the island of Morotai. The point of landing was unexpected, the enemy having apparently anticipated it in the lower parts of the islands, where he had accumulated strong forces in heavilydefended positions. In bypassing these forces and landing further to the north, he was taken by surprise, and his initial resistance is being rapidly overcome. Our ground losses up to the present have been very light, and we have had no naval or air losses. “The Halmahera-Philippine line has now been penetrated and the enemy’s conquest to the south imperilled by the threat of envelopment. The rolling up of the remainder of this line would cut off and isolate garrisons in the East Indies, estimated at nearly 200,000 men, comprising the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Armies and would sever the vital supply to the mainland of oil and other war essentials."