STEADY GAINS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1944, Page 3

STEADY GAINS

, IN LAND CAMPAIGNS AMERICANS AND AUSTRALIANS ADVANCING. IN NEW BRITAIN & NEW GUINEA. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 6. American Marines are usingtanks and artillery against strong Japanese resistance east of Cape Gloucester, New Britain. Our troops are advancing slowly eastward 10--ward Borgen Bay, but are encountering increasing enemy activity. Sunday’s Japanese counter-attack, when the enemy was repulsed, leaving behind 200 dead, was followed by another strong counter-attack early on Tuesday morning. Heavy fire from American automatic weapons broke it up. , r . .. The marines then took the initiative, driving forward with tank protection and under the cover of an aitilleiy barrage. The Japanese employed field guns in an effort to stem the Ameiican advance, the extent of which has not yet been reported. At the same time American patrols set out to widen the perimeter round the Cape Gloucester airstrip, and these have now joined up with the marine units who landed at the second‘Cape Gloucester bridgehead and have since been fighting m the jungle. At the two other Allied invasion beach-heads in the South-West Pacific area, Arawe, southern New Britain, and Saidor, northern New Guinea, the Americans are enlarging their holdings. Some eight miles south-east of Saidor, •■he Australian forces continue to advance up the Huon Peninsula coast at an average rate of four miles a day. They are closing in on Sio, the Japanese barge base 50 miles north-west of Allied-hcki Finschhafen. ‘ The Japanese, who are making a disorderly retreat,. are .believed to be trying to evacuate some of their troops by sea. PURSUIT OF REMNANTS. """ The enemy forces are caught between the Australians advancing up the peninsula and the Americans at Saidor. The pursuit ■ of the broken remnants of the Japanese rearguard has develooed largely into a moppingup operation. The enemy is discarding his equipment and all superfluous weight, including much personal gear, in his flight. Japanese soldiers who have been unable to keep pace with the retreat have been left to die on the track. The wounded have also been left behind. Australian patrols, moving through mountainous country inland, have wined out numbers of Japanese found living on native foods and roots in the hills.

Air actions over New Britain and New Guinea, reported in General MacArthur’s communique today, cost the Japanese 16 planes shot down, with five others probably destroyed. A, Japanese cruiser off New Hanover Island has been damaged by a direct bomb hit, while two enemy cargo vessels of 2000 and 4000 tons exploded and burst into flames when attacked by Liberators and Mitchells at Koepang, Timor, on Tuesday. The main enemy air losses were again inflicted over Rabaul. when Allied Solomons-based fighters shot down six Zeros, with five others probably destroyed in a sweep over Rapopo aerodrome. Heavy units from the Solomons which bombed the harbour at Kavieng shot down three of 19 interceptors. Madang, 55 miles west of Saidor, and- Alexishafen, 12 miles north of Madang, have again been the main targets for the South-West Pacific bombers. These aerial assaults to disrupt Japanese supplies are directly linked with the land operations in the adjacent areas. The air actions reported in the latest SouthWest Pacific communique cost the Allies four planes.