NEW GUINEA ZONE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 64, 17 March 1942, Page 5

NEW GUINEA ZONE

JAPS. LOSE INITIATIVE HAMMERED BY R.A.F. BOMBERS (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) (Recd. 5.5 p.m.) Sydney, March 16. Eight Japanese bombers, escorted by nine fighters, raided Thursday Island on Saturday. There were no fatal casualties. Allied planes shot down two fighters and two bombers. One Allied fighter was lost. The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent at Port Moresby says that constant. R.A.A.F. hammering is making Japanese positions in the New Guinea zone increasingly uncomfortable. Bases at Salamaua and Lae are being subjected to an air offensive that is growing in intensity. So encouraging have been the early results of this offensive that there is reason to hope that New Guinea may be the rock on which the eastern end of the Japanese sweep southwards will break. The Port Moresby correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, states that the Japanese are now obliged to split their available air strength over at least three main bases —Huon Gulf, Gasmata and Rabaul—and there is every indication from their methods of operation that they are now trying to conserve their aircraft as much as possible. In the raid on Port Moresby on Saturday by nine heavy bombers in tight-packed formation, the machines kept at an extreme altitude, well away from anti-aircraft fire, and made only one hurried run over the target before they dropped their bombs and made off at top speed. The correspondent adds that the Japanese, who have been unable to get their offensive restarted since the R.A.A.F. wrested the initiative from them five days ago with a series : of lightning blows against ships and : aerodromes, are now taking severe 1 punishment over a wide triangle 1 bounded b;.- Lae, Rabaul and Gas- • mata. With their convoy broken up > in the Huon Gulf and the Lae and ’ Salamaua aerodromes blasted, our ' main offensive is directed against s Rabaul, now Japan’s most vital intermediate base on the Truk-Lae 1300- : mile supply-line which is now stretched almost to breaking-point. . The threat now to the Japanese is the complete severance of this , line along which come all food, munitions and fuel.