SEVEN SHIPS SUNK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25562, 15 June 1944, Page 5

SEVEN SHIPS SUNK

ANOTHER ALLIED SUCCESS RAID ON GEELVINK BAY (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 14. Hitting again at Japanese supply lines in the waters of Western Dutch New Guinea, Allied bombers have sunk seven more ships and sunk or severely damaged an eighth. Mitchells made this latest punishing attack in Geelvink Bay. Four of the ships sunk were 1000-ton cargo vessels, three were coastal vessels of smaller tonnage, and the eighth was a cargo vessel of 2000 tons. Reporting this air success, General MacArthur's communique to-day also announced further gains by the American forces on Biak Island (Geelvink Bay). Having been repaired and extended by an American engineer unit, the captured Mokmer airfield is now in use by Allied planes. Ground forces are driving against the. enemy-held Borokoe several thousand yards furtner west.

American casualties on Biak up to June 6 were about 80 killed and 250 wounded. Japanese casualties are believed to be 'at least 10 times these figures. In Sunday’s fighting alone more than 100 enemy troops were killed.

Six Japanese planes raiding Biak damaged an American destroyer. Intercepting Allied fighters shot down three of the enemy planes, with two others probably destroyed. In British New Guinea the Japanese troops trapped between the American and Australian forces in the WewakHansa Bav coastal sector are being given no respite from Allied air blows. After some months Darwin again figures in the South-west Pacific war news, a lone Japanese reconnaissance plane having been shot down by R.A.A.F. Spitfires in the area. Admiralty - based Liberators are keeping up their attacks against Japanese bases in the Carolines; about 90 tons of explosives having been dropped on Palau and Truk in the latest attacks. Twenty fighters intercepted the Liberators, and one Japanese plane was shot down, with two others probably destroyed.