CONVOY ATTACKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25240, 1 June 1943, Page 3

CONVOY ATTACKED

JAPANESE VESSELS . ■ \ TRANSPORT SET ON FIRE (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust, Correspondent) (Rec. 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 31. A 5000-ton Japanese . transport set on fire by a Liberator bomber off Mansa Bay, northern New Guinea, on Saturday was one of a convoy of six ships believed to be carrying troops. Hansa Bay is the landing stage for the powerful enemy base at Wewak, 90 miles to the west. The convoy was believed to comprise four medium-sized transports escorted by two destroyers. The ships had evidently been attempting to discharge their freight under cover of the adverse weather which last week hampered General MacArthur’s aerial operations. When first sighted by an Allied reconnaissance plane on Friday the convoy was well out to sea, about 70 miles east of Wewak. The movement of the convoy indicated the enemy’s nervousness about the possibility of Allied air attacks. On Saturday evening the ships were 12 miles north-east of Hansa Bay. * A 20-year-old Georgian, Lieutenant Lark Martin, was the pilot of the reconnoitring Liberator, which first sighted the ships on Saturday. An anti-aircraft shell fired by an accompanying destroyer put the radio out of commission, and so damaged the hydraulic system that the aircraft was left without landing brakes. Then a patrol of nine Zeros, probpbly based on the nearby Nubia airfield, was sighted. Five of the Zeros showed no eagerness to fight, but the remaining four pressed home an attack. After two hail been shot down, and a third badly 'damaged, the remaining attacking Japanese fighter broke off the engagement and rejoined its more discreet companions. No subsequent news has been received of the convoy or the damaged transport. .