JAP BASES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 23, 29 January 1943, Page 5

JAP BASES

POUNDED BY ALLIED AIR FORCES

ENEMY CHAIN NORTH OF AUSTRALIA

(Special Australian Correspondent— N.Z.P.A ) (Reed. 10.30 p.m.) Sydney, Jan.. 28. Further evidence of the forging of a great chain of Japanese airfields anti naval anchorages north and north-east of Australia is contained in General MacArthur’s latest operational report. The Allied air forces in the past 24 hours attacked enemy bases not previously mentioned in communiques. Jap air activity has been light, but a small Allied merchant vessel is reported to have been sunk by enemy bombers off Wessel Island, near the north-eastern tip of Arnheim Land. Casualties among the crew >?re light. New enemy bases attacked included Faan and Roematt (Kai Island), and Aru Island, in the Arafura Sea. Building and jetty areas were bombed by Hudsons at Faan and Roematt, while another formation of Hudsons bombed and machine-gunned enemy surface craft at Dobo. A direct bomb hit was scored on a lugger.

To the north-east of Australia a raid reported to-day by Admiral Halsey’s bombers on Ballale was the first disclosure that the Japs had succeeded in establishing an airfield on that island. Ballale is three miles north-east of Shortland and 295 miles north-west of Henderson airfield, on Guadalcanar.

The main Jap New Guinea bases of Lae and Salamaua were again heavily raided by Mitchells and Havocs, with a Lightning escort. Beaufighters strafed the north New Guinea coast around the mouth of the Waria River, between the Mambare River and Salamaua.

The 103rd Jap raid on Port Moresby was made by three bombers early on Wednesday morning. One of the attacking nlanes was hit by an Allied fighter and probably failed to reach its base. The implication of the continued widespread Allied bombing activity is that the Japs are making rapid progress in forging a chain of island bases. This arc swings down from Celebes through Timor. Kai. Aru and Tenimber Islands, along the north New Guinea coast an<? out through New Britain to the Northern Solomons on the eastern flank.

"With the Papuan campaign in full swing and the spotlight focussed on the grim struggle for jungle strong-points, the activity in these islands will be eclipsed by a more spectacular fight,” writes the Sydney Sun South-west Pacific wai correspondent. But the Japs have not forgotten about them. The enemy has been steadily building up for whatever he plans next.

MORE BOMBERS WANTED AUSTRALIA MUST ATTACK APPRECIATION OF JAP THREAT (Special Australian Correapondent— N.Z.P.A.) (Recd. 9.15 p.m.) Sydney, Jan. 28. “Co - ordlnated aggressiveness must henceforth be the Allied order of battle. In the scheme of global strategy formulated at the Casablanca conference priority must be given to the European theatre. But the war with Japan can no longer be relegated to a . holding operation. The promise of maximum aid to China presupposes the reopening of the Burma link as a prelude to blows at the heart of the Japanese enemy. In the Pacific emphasis must be upon naval and aerial activities aimed at the severance of Japan’s long lines of communication, and at closing in upon the Japanese mainland.” This Australian appreciation of the great Allied plan for victory is made by the military correspondent of the Sydney Herald. Keenly alive to the dangers of allowing Japan to consolidate and develop her Pacific and Asiatic coprosperity spheres, Australia will watch eagerly for concrete evidence that this theatre is not overlooked in the new strategy of global war. The Sydney Herald, editorially applauding "this most momentous conference,” declares of the Pacific that "partial diversion of Allied naval and air strength, now within the framework of agreed global strategy, might save great loss and bloodshed later on.” That the Japanese have enormously strengthened their South-west Pacific defensive arc •running through an unbroken chain of more than 2000 miles of island bases from Celebes to the Solomons is an inescapable deduction to be drawn from General MacArthur’s communiq’sLS oj the past few weeks. The thickening lin«» of enemy airfields and naval bases under our continual air attack tell their own plain story of the Japanese development of a great fortified ring around the conquered territories. Australian vVar observers, however, are far from being assured that these Japanese efforts have a purely defensive purpose designed primarily to permit unhindered exploitation of the resources or tne Netherlands East Indies and Malaya.

Mr. Curtin reiterated Australia’s fears when he told the assembled Federal Parliament: "There is no portend suggesting that the enemy has had a rebuff sufficient to deter him from the task he set himself.”

At', a subsequent press coherence The Prime Minister elaborated this statement when he said: “In past offensive moves the Japanese failed to gauge the strength of Allied resiitance. but with a stroke of luck they might have a major concentration stronger than the resistance we could offer. Australia fears the present Japanese shipping and plane concentrations just so offensively designed

"While such fears of a new major enemy drive may be exaggerated, it : s clear that Australia’s healthy realism towards the Jananese menace has nothing in common with the earlier which proved so expenthe Allies. It is absolutely certain, 100, that enemy efforts around the periphery of their entire South Pacific and Indian Ocean domains are on a “renter scalp than ever before. Heavily-manned and well-stocked Jananese bases could be niiickly converted from defensive to offensive ni”' r 'nsps. Australia recor-•-.icnc fha< (bn ipland-honn’ii" ofrensivp ho’airrt Janan was morel v a temporary palliative. not the final solution of qiralP'W. B’d her war observers tha* ndditionn’ air strength in the Pacific would weaken .Tanana*' 0 h'l*in rr nower hefor■ 7;hn nrp’ld OY9Cl’t n a n ’' ey’c'inor threat. 5Q bomber*-- to at’ack Fnhaiff nrd the o<her enemv bases mentioned in the daiiv v-for ten attack to-dav .Tn r 'p*’’*' p*M*ino Ins-e* would pprto\ri-’ ennb that she CO 1 ’ 1 ') nn fov-mc n r "xnan^’’ lo ’ her con' , ”«*s. I? i , ' n,,v a n d •■•'rpvO'’“bl” fnrp/'rt n»i fn i the 1 ” LtnL ic pn p<-<- rn f ini I tn |novt»«hjp Hr/nnf | Tt tc v-lob. hnnn-l i-> s|,.<rn|U fhn< '-•nnfer n-,n v be the nrov> ci nn of ’just such additional air strength.