GOOD PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 April 1944, Page 3

GOOD PROGRESS

IN DUTCH NEW GUINEA AMERICANS CLOSING IN ON AIRFIELDS. ONE ALREADY IN USE. (By The American forces at Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, are closing in on the airfield area from two directions, General MacArthur’s communique today reports. No mention is made of .Japanese opposition. Earlier reports indicated that strong enemy forces were concentrated round the airfield.

At Aitape, Allied planes are now making use of the captured Tadji airfield. The Japanese troops from the area have fled to the hills. An R.A.A.F. works unit which accompanied the landing force had the battered Tadji airfield ready for use 42 hours after it was captuied. They worked from 2 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, with only one respite, and this was at 5 o’clock on Sunday morning, when Japanese bullets kept the working parties under cover for an hour and a half.

ENEMY LEAVING MADANG.

Because of the new landings the Japanese are believed .to withdrawing from Madang, 208 miles south-west of Aitape. Australian troops driving northward along the New Guinea coast have advanced to within a few miles of Madang without meeting any opposition. These Australians in the Madang area and the Americans in the Holland-ia-Aitape area form a pincers within which 60,000 Japanese are trapped. At Hollandia police boys who accompanied the Dutch administration officials ashore will round up native villagers and try to communicate with Dutch residents who are believed to have fled to the mountains when the Japanese seized the area two years ago. The Allied air forces continue io smash points of Japanese concentration along the New Guinea coast. At Wewak a further 184 tons of bombs were dropped on four airfields in the area, which has ensured their continued unserviceability. In attacks on Japanese supplies and personnel at Hansa Bay 122 tons of bombs were dropped. In an air combat over Woleai, in the Carolines, on April 2.3, the Americans shot down 17 out of 30 Japanese interceptors, with four others probably destroyed. One Liberator was lost.

LITTLE SEEN OF JAPANESE IN HOLLANDIA AREA. VALUABLE»SEA & AIR BASE. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 26. Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the powerful Japanese forces believed to be concentrated round. Hollandia. The American troops advancing in a pincers movement against the three airfields in the area have not yet encountered major opposition. Earlier reports estimated that about 15,000 Japanese were garrisoned at Hollandia. The Americans who captured Hollandia township have driven a further mile and a half toward the aerodromes.

Only 98 Japanese were killed round Aitape. Some prisoners were taken, but the bulk of the Japanese forces in the area withdrew on Monday from Santa Anna Mission, about one mile from Aitape village, under pressure from the Americans. This enemy force comprised two companies. The sole Japanese ail - opposition was offered on Sunday night, when a single enemy raider bombed the Hollandia area.

The combination of a potential harbour and airfield development enhances the military value of the Hollandia area, which is the main strategic prize of the New Guinea invasion operations. Humboldt Bay, on which Hollandia is situated, provides the only extensive anchorage between Wewak and GeeIvink Bay, a stretch of 450 miles. Hollandia was used .as a flying-boat base by the Royal Netherlands Navy, which built a slipway and installed mooring buoys. The coastline is rugged and steep. Of the three airfields, . Hollandia strip is 17 miles from Hollandia village, Sentani 12 miles, and Cyclops 11 miles.

The location of Hollandia in relation to the other important bases in the southern and central Pacific is: From Port Moresby, 660 miles; from Lae, 520 miles; from Wewak. 215 miles; from Wadke, 125 miles; from Palau. 800 miles. The second American invasion area, Aitape, before the war was an administration and trading centre and the first port of call in the mandated territories for steamers from Hong Kong and Manila. However, the port facilities there are primitive and the unloading of vessels was done by surf boats. Aitape village is situated on a swampy coastal plain about four miles wide, and behind the plain rise 4000 ft. mountains.

The Allied landings were made on a beach about five miles south-east of Aitape village and within 2000 yards of the Tadji fighter and bomber strips. Tn November of last year the Japanese began to extend this airfield, but the incessant Allied aerial attajeks prevented completion of the work.