ISLANDS DEATH-TRAP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 February 1944, Page 3

ISLANDS DEATH-TRAP

OVER 8,000 JAPANESE KILLED ON KWAJALEIN AMERICAN LOSSES RELATIVELY LIGHT. DEFENCES MUCH INFERIOR TO THOSE ON TARAWA. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) NEW YORK, February 8. There is no indication at Kwajalein that the Japanese defences will ' grow stronger as the Americans penetrate further into the Nipponese Empire, says the Associated Press of America.

Comparison between Kwajalein and Tarawa supports the theory that the Americans encountered the best the Japanese possess at Tarawa, and the Kwajalein defences were if anything inferior to Tarawa’s, though the Japanese had been building them for 20 years, whereas Tarawa was captured and fortified since the beginning of the war. The marines at Tarawa encountered Bin. coastal guns and a variety of smaller weapons, whereas the largest guns captured at Kwajalein are ancient high-wheeled guns similar to those used in the 1905 Russian-Japanese war, with sighting arrangements comparable to the American Civil War guns. So far Kwajalein has not produced a single thing the Americans have not met and conquered before. . More than 8000 Japanese were killed in the Kwajalein atoll fighting. A Pacific Fleet communique says' that the following details regarding the casualties on Kwajalein atoll were complied from reports received by last evening:— In the southern attack force which captured Kwajalein Island and adjacent objeetves, our dead number 157, wounded 712, and missing 17. In the same area, enemy dead numbered 4650, and prisoners 173. In the northern attack force which captured Roi and Namur and adjacent objectives, our dead were 129, wounded 436, and missing 65. In the same area, the enemy dead total 3472, and prisoners 91. Final figures are expected to vary only slightly from the above

The United Press of America correspondent at Kwajalein says that the Japanese now have troops and defences on only three of the 93 islands comprising the atoll. The garrisons on these three are so light that they will be mopped up at the convenience of small patrols.