BIG SEA BATTLE OFF BALI

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22204, 23 February 1942, Page 5

BIG SEA BATTLE OFF BALI

Japanese Suffer Heavy Losses

Enemy Landing Parties Engaged By Dutch

(Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 22. I ONDON is still awaiting news of the big sea battle which was reported last night to be still raging off the island of Bali in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese have suffered severely and the Tokio radio was more subdued than usual this morning in its claims. The Japanese losses so far known are as fellows: One cruiser sunk and five damaged, one destroyer sunk and others damaged, one transport sunk and others damaged and four aeroplanes shot down. The Allied losses are one destroyer sunk, one warship damaged and four planes lost. , The Japanese are understood to have landed at one or two points on Bali and are being engaged by Dutch forces. The latest Batavia communique states that nine Japanese planes were shot down during raids on Java yesterday.

According to a message from Washington American heavy bombers and dive-bombers attacked a Japanese fleet consisting of two cruisers and four or five destroyers approaching southeast of Bali. The bombers landed three hits on one or more of the cruisers, also two hits on transports, while the dive-bombers hit one cruiser and one transport. Four enemy fighters were shot down. Later American divebombers and fighters resumed the attack and seriously damaged a Japanese cruiser. Four American planes are missing as a result of this attack. In the third and fourth attacks American planes, Including Flying Fortresses scored three hits on a cruiser.

The U.S. Navy announced that six American destroyers, co-operating with Dutch warships, sank two enemy destroyers off Bali, while the American vessels suffered only slight damage and a few casualties. Yesterday Australian aircraft located an enemy convoy near Koepang, Dutch Timor. The Japanese attack on Bali is reported from Batavia to be in strength. The Dutch garrisons there and in South Sumatra are fighting delaying actions, denying war material and supplies to the enemy. Queen Wilhelmina, broadcasting to

her people, paid a special tribute to the gallant defenders of the Netherlands East Indies. Regarding the Caribbean area, the Queen said the menace to Curacao and other islands is imminent. At any moment the same fate may befall Surinam. The Japanese bombed Banjoewangi, a port at the eastern extremity of Java. Thirty-nine civilians were killed and 15 wounded, chiefly as the result of a direct hit on an air raid shelter. Civilian Resistance Reports from General MacArthur Indicate that civilian resistance of Filipinos against the Japanese in occupied areas is increasingly effective. A secret society called “fighters for freedom” has been formed and is now organising underground activities against the Japanese. The Filipinos openly show contempt for the Japanese while many Informers have recently mysteriously disappeared. The Japanese authorities have plastered Manila and suburbs with proclamations that 10 Filipinos will be executed for every Japanese killed, but members of the “fighters for freedom” nightly after the pasters to read 10 Japanese soldiers will be killed for every Filipino executed.