Pacific War Pattern

Northern Advocate, 13 March 1944, Page 5

Pacific War Pattern

LONDON, March 12. “Raids on Truk and the Marianas have set a pattern for the Pacific war. If the pattern continues, we shall either capture or neutralise the enemy’s outlying bases until we approach the coast cf Japan proper. Then we will bomb or burn it from one end of the island empire to the other.” said Rear-Admhal Sherman to a United Press interviewer. He added that the carrier fleet nullified the assertion that land-based aviation was superior. “If we have more carrier planes rt a given spot than the Japs have land-bused planes, we can go there and do as we like—that goes for Tokio too,” he added. Heavy Air Attacks Allied air forces in the, south-west Pacific have made heavy attacks on practically all main Japanese bases in the theatre. They heavily pounded bases in the Bismarck area, including Rabaul. New Britain, Kavieng, New Ireland, and Lorengau, Admiralty Islands. In New Guinea the main targets for our bombers were Hollandia and Wewak. General MacArthur’s latest communique reports a big air battle over Wewak where Allied nlanes attacking Boram airfield encountered strong Japanese fighter interception. Our bombers and their fighter escort shot down 2G Zeros with six others probably destroyed. Several parked planes were also destroyed. We lost two planes with others damaged. Shipping was again the main target at Hollandia, a small cargo-vessel being damaged in a night bombing attack.