THE OTATO DAILY TIMES Friday, May 25, 1945. THE A.I.F.’S WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25853, 25 May 1945, Page 4

THE OTATO DAILY TIMES Friday, May 25, 1945. THE A.I.F.’S WAR

The Australian success on Tarakan, which culminated a few days ago in the taking of a prominent geographical feature of the territory, Helen’s Hill, has been won with difficulty up to the present, and is still far from complete. The Japanese on this island have fought with a stubborn courage commensurate with the importance of Tarakan in the strategy of supply in the Pacific war, and they have been assisted by well-prepared positions. The approaches to Helen’s Hill, according to a report received through the Australian High Commissioner in New Zealand, were limited to the very top of a 60 to 70 degree ridge wide enough to take only one man at a time, while the hill itself proved “ a veritable fortress.” And beyond Helen’s Hill the enemy has entrenched himself behind a ridge equally formidable. The operations on Tarakan must, however, provide the Australian people, and the troops themselves, with a new stimulus after the long-drawn months of fighting in areas behind the battlefront, and where the most arduous assignments have been classified as “mopping up.” Tarakan’s wealth of oil is exceptional, <even in the rich Indies archipelago, and the island has been described as the Ploesti of the Far East. The fuel oil which it yields in great quantity can be used in ships without any refining. The denying of Tarakan to the Japanese, with the corollary that the fuel resources of the island will become a great moored oil tanker for the Allies, will represent on the completion of the present operations a very important contribution to the offensive against Japan. The recovery of the East Indies must be a gradual and wearying process, to judge from the Japanese ability to fight a long war of resistance even when hope has faded. It may even be necessary to prolong the war upon isolated groups throughout the great' island area of the South-west Pacific after the hostilities with Japan proper have been concluded with victory. Both to the forwarding'of this necessary extermination policy, and as a direct assistance to the campaigns against Japan itself, Indo-China and the China Coast, the seizure of suitable island strongholds such as Tarakan is essential, and it is probable that these operations—which have been undertaken by the Ninth Division, from which were recruited the "Rats of Tobruk’’—presage a new development in the employment ' of the Australian Imperial Forces in the Pacific, in the inclusion of primary offensive objectives in their campaigning. Meanwhile, with an estimated half-million Australians employed in the services in the Pacific theatre, the vast mopping .up that has been undertaken by the A.I.F. proceeds. The recent land and amphibious assault on Wewak was the climax of five months of arduous campaigning along 100 miles of the '•northern New Guinea coast. The Wewak operations were remarkable for their low ratio of loss, and they isolate very large forces of _ the Japanese remaining in New Guinea. While a mass surrender quite without precedent was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald from Wewak, it appears that the enemy is now resisting strongly from the jungle depths. On New Guinea and elsewhere in the Australian area the Japanese, while they have ceased-to attempt to send surface craft to the relief of their garrisons, are reported to be using cargocarrying and other submarines to maintain communication among garrisons, and possibly with the Japanese homeland. The end of the Australians’ unspectacular but useful campaigning against secondary objectives may therefore be expected to be long delayed, although it may be supplemented by more profitable offensive operations elsewhere.