AIR AND LAND FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1942, Page 3

AIR AND LAND FIGHTING

IN THE PACIFIC WAR AREAS

CREATION OF UNIFIED ALLIED COMMAND

PHILIPPINES STRUGGLE

JAPANESE ASSAULT BY AIR ON CORREGIDOR i ■■■- '■ 5 New Front Taken Up by British Troops in Malaya FOLLOWING ON ENEMY LANDINGS SUCCESSFUL ALLIED AIR ATTACKS ON AERODROMES AND SHIPPING LONDON, January 4. The latest news from the Far East is contained in a Washington War Department communique which reports a Japanese air attack on Corregidor, the island fortress at the entrance to Manila Bay. Four of the Japanese bombers were shot down. Only minor damage was done and the casualties were slight. . General MacArthur’s forces are still resisting m a rocky peninsula west of Manila Bay. The Netherlands radio reports little enemy air activity over the Netherlands East Indies. In Malaya our troops on the Perak front have withdrawn tb new positions further south. Today’s Singapore communique reports that the Japanese are still pressing hard. A successful engagement is reported with Japanese fighting vehicles. The enemy casualties are believed to have been heavy. In Lower Perak, where Japanese landings were reported two days ago, there is little fresh enemy activity. A Singapore message says the Japanese who took part in this landing used junks, sampans, fishing craft, roughly constructed barges and rafts, which they seized in evacuated ports before we got our scorched-earth policy working. A Singapore communique reports offensive action by Allied aircraft; which bombed and machine-gunned enemy shipping off the west coast of Malaya. Another air attack was made by British and American planes operating from Burma. An enemyoccupied aerodrome in Thailand, 200 miles east of Rangoon, was attacked. Without loss to themselves, the Allied planes destroyed for certain six enemy fighters and probably another fighter. In British North Borneo the Japanese are reported to be landing at the railhead on the west shore of Brunei Bay. In acknowledging the confidence expressed in him by the people of Britain and America, on his appointmente to the supreme command in the South-Western Pacific, General Wavell said he was fully conscious that a great responsibility rested on him. Japan had gained the opening advantages that might always be gained by the murderer, thief and cheat against the ordinary decent citizen, and the situation might become worse until the tide turned but turn it would, in irresistible strength, when the time came. General Wavell paid a tribute to the defenders of the Philippines, Malaya and Hong Kong and to the splendid work of the Netherlands East Indies forces.