AIR & NAVAL LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1942, Page 3

AIR & NAVAL LOSSES

SUFFERED BY JAPANESE, IN SOUTH-WESTERN PACIFIC. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 10. During the period in which General MacArthur’s South-West Pacific Command has operated—since April 21 —■ at least 477 Japanese aircraft have been shot down or destroyed on the ground or damaged in this war zone. This is revealed in a review of the 150 communiques which have been issued to date from General MacArthur’s headquarters. The Japanese losses in the recent fighting in the Solomon Islands are not included in the tally. The details of the enemy aircraft accounted for by the Australian and American airmen are: 300 bombers, fighters, flying-boats and float-planes destroyed, 70 severely damaged and probably destroyed, and 107 damaged. The real total is undoubtedly considerably higher. The communiques frequently made reference to the destruction of unspecified numbers of grounded aircraft by bombings, but no official estimate of ’the number has been made. Of the Japanese aircraft definitely destroyed more than 200 were fighters. The Allied losses in the same period have not always been listed in the I communiques. The greatest number of admitted losses in a single operation was four planes. However, some observers place the ratio of our losses to the Japanese at one to two. The Allied air and naval forces under General MacArthur’s command have inflicted heavy shipping losses on the enemy. They have sunk one aircraft-carrier and severely damaged another, sunk three cruisers and damaged four, sunk two destroyers and damaged three, sunk three ocean-going submarines and four midget submarines and probably destroyed two more ocean-going submarines and damaged a further two, sunk 12 transports and damaged 26, and destroyed five gunboats and an unspecified number of landing barges.