FIERCE AIR BATTLE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22529, 13 March 1943, Page 5

FIERCE AIR BATTLE

JAPANESE SUFFER HEAVILY Fourteen Planes Shot Down N.Z.P.A.—Special Australian Correspondent (10.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, Mar. 12. Lightning and Kittyhawk lighters shot 11 Japanese planes out of action in a fierce air battle over Oro Bay (on the north coast of Papua about 20 miles south-east of Buna) on Thursday. These enemy planes were part of a force of 40 (24 bombers and 16 fighters) raiding Allied shipping and shore installations. Nine Zeros were destroyed for certain and thiee more Zeros and two bombers are claimed as probably destroyed. Allied losses were light. On Monday a formation of nine Japanese bombers and 13 fighters sank a small Allied vessel at Oro Bay. Thursday’s raid was the second time this- week that the enemy have employed a force of more than 20 bombers in the New Guinea area. On Tuesday, 26 bombers, escorted by 21 Zeros, raided Wau. Two twin-engined bombers again attacked Wau after sundown on Thursday, but caused neither damage nor casualties.

Our Liberator bombers made a raid before dawn on Lakunai aerodrome at Rabaul on Thursday, but heavy clouds prevented observation of results. In the Mubo area, about 30 miles from Wau, Havoc attack bombers swept enemy positions along the Vickers and Guadagasal Ridges. There is no additional news of ground fighting in this locality. Wishful Thinking To hope that the war would end soon was wishful thinking of the worst type, declared the Commander-in-Chief of the Netherlands forces, Colonel Helfrich, interviewed here. "The Japanese must be continually attacked," he said. “He believed the enemy would make desperate efforts to reconquer territory from which they had been driven in New Guinea and the Solomons. While the Allied Nations had not sufficient strength tor simultaneous all-out offensives against the Germans and Japan, sufficient forces must be concentrated in the Pacific to prevent Japanese consolidation in conquered territories. Colonel Helfrich gave several reasons for his belief that the war against Japan would be long. “The Japanese are still very strong, and will fight to the end against overwhelming odds,” he said. "We know nothing of what is going on in Japan. We know nothing of their capacity to build ships and planes. I agree that it would be a very good thing to attack Japan itself from China by air and from sea by naval action, but I do not think for a moment it would be enough to destroy Japan that way. Even if we succeed in doing that and sinking all Japanese shipping, I believe we will still have to fight the enemy by man in occupied territories.”

Colonel Helfrich said the best way to stop Japanese consolidation in the islands north of Australia was by constantly attacking shipping and harbour installations from the air. Asked what he thought of the Bismarck Sea battle, Colonel Helfrich replied: “We should have more of them.” He added that every ship lost by Japan counted enormously, and said it was unreal to talk of sea power and air power as separate entities in regard to the Pacific or any other area. The reality was that command of the sea could be achieved only by a combination of the two forces. Colonel Helfrich’s wife, two sons and two daughters were at Bandoeng, in Java when the island was occupied by the Japanese, and he has since had no news concerning them. “Things Look Bad ' "I am not overstating it when I say that things look bad in the Pacific,” declared Senator Robert Reynolds, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, says a Washington message. He added that the Bismarck Sea victory had caused, jubilation among thoughtless Americans, but sober reflection to those attempting to glimpse the future. A vaguely projected grand offensive against Japan proper might prove futile unless it was undertaken soon. "By the time we get around to it,” warned Senator Reynolds, "Japan may have completed the establishment of fully a dozen political, economic, Indus: rial and military zones as powerful as those contained in her homeland triangle of Nagasaki-Yokohama-Hakodate. An assault on each of these centres would ba fully as difficult and as costly as an attack on Japan proper. We would have to storm them all to win the war.”

The United States Secretary of War (Mr H. L. Stimson) said there was evidence that Japan had increased her strength in the Southern Pacific, particularly north of Australia. There was ample evidence that hard fighting lay ahead.