ALL-OUT OFFENSIVE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 114, 18 May 1942, Page 5

ALL-OUT OFFENSIVE

ALLIED AIR FORCES SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC Special Aus. Correspondent, N.Z.P.A. (Recd. 11.57 p.m.) Sydney, May 17. The Allied Air Forces have been staging an all-out offensive during the past week to prevent the Jap- i anese regrouping their naval ami ' air strengths for a further thrust ' south. The Japanese have retali- 1 ated with the biggest air raids yet against Port Moresby, vital outpost of Australian defence. Thus the South-west Pacific air war assumes larger proportions than ever. “The resurgence of heavy aerial warfare over Papua may well herald the beginning of a Japanese attempt to smash the Allied base at Port Moresby,” says one commentator. Others point out that while the war during the past week has been in the air, certain Allied and Japanese naval forces have not been idle. “Somewhere out on the broad expanse of the Pacific it is possible that commands of Allied and Japanese forces have already shaped things to come for this continent,” writes a war correspondent. In a week during which adverse weather conditions considerably hampered operations for at least two days, the Allied air score, as claimed in official communiques, was 15 Zero fighters destroyed, 11 other planes destroyed or damaged, two seaplanes destroyed, two submarines sunk or damaged, throe transports damaged, a 3000-ton vessel sunk, a 2000-ton vessel damaged, one tanker damaged, a near miss against another, and one seaplane tender damaged. The major tally in enemy shipping was scoreci on Wednesday night when Australian bombers made a surprise raid, the first of any consequence, on Amboina. A medium-sized ship, apparently loaded with explosives, blew up after two direct hits. Direct hits were also scored on two other vessels, and large fires were started on the wharves. A 25-year-old squadron-leader who led the raid said: "We came down low to get the shelter of the mountains which screen Amboina Bay. As we topped the brow of the range we were so low we could see the tops of the trees through the matted jungle scrub waving in the slipstreams. Then only a mile from our targets, we had. little to worry about. We caught the defences asleep. We slapped open the bomb doors and slammed on the power. We were only mast high when we passed the ships and the explosions rocked the machines as we watched the Japanese scuttling over the decks. We had come so suddenly they had no time to man the guns until we had dropped the bombs. A warship in the bay started firing after we passed." Friday’s enemy raids on Port Moresby were made by 26 heavy bombers and 22 lighters, the number of planes employed substantiating the belief that the enemy had already received considerable land-based air reinforcements at Rabaul and Lae. Our communique claims that no service damage was caused by the attack. A tribute to the anti-aircraft, defences of Port Moresby was paid by an American, Brigadier-General W\ F. Marquat, anti-aircraft officer at General MacArthur’s South-west Pacific Headquarters. “Australian anti-aircraft soldiers are doing a great job,” he says, “and the Australian 3.7 ack-ack gun is a great weapon.” Port Moresby anti-aircraft defences already claim that five enemy Zero lighters were destroyed and four others were probably unable to reach thqir base.