NO LANDINGS IN JAVA

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22200, 18 February 1942, Page 5

NO LANDINGS IN JAVA

Axis Reports Denied Bitter Fighting For Palembang By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 17. A Reuter report states that Axis claims of Japanese landings In Java are untrue. Java, the key island of the Netherlands East Indies, has a population of 70,000,000. In Sumatra, the Japanese have occupied the great oil centre of Palembang. Fighting Is still goingon in this area. The Dutch destroyed all the oil installations and wells throughout the area and the Japanese occupied it only after bitter fighting and after suffering heavy losses. Dutch aircraft bombed the Japanese invasion fleet, securing hits on five transports and two cruisers, and setting one of the cruisers ablaze. When the Japanese attempted to move up the river in barges to Palembang, R.A.F. bombers and Hurricane fighters went into action and did tremendous damage. Some Hurricanes made as many as six sorties during the day. Accounts reaching London of the Japanese capture of Palembang, all speak with the utmost admiration of the spirit of the Dutch authorities and people which showed itself in the unhesitating destruction of this vast oil centre. The capture intact by the Japanese of the oil centre would have been the greatest single prize of the whole area. The Dutch appear to have carried out the destruction very completely. All the Japanese captured are flames and smoke. It is disclosed in a broadcast from Batavia that the Dutch have also destroyed the oilfields in North Sumatra. Lesson of Singapore “Let Singapore’s fall be a lesson to all of us never again to expect help from outside, but have confidence in our own power as General MacArthur and his heroes have done and still do,” declares an editorial in “Java Bode.” The “Nieuws Van Den Tag” says: “Singapore and Malaya fell not because of Japanese superiority but because of their own weakness. The situation in the Indies is slightly different. Our strength lies in the fact that we trusted solely in ourselves, therefore Singapore’s fall does not make us lose our heads. We do not gamble and we do not bluff. Our strength is built on reality. We have real chances in this game of life and death.”