CAMPAIGN IN PACIFIC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 63, 17 March 1943, Page 5

CAMPAIGN IN PACIFIC

JAPANESE RAID DARWIN HEAVY ENEMY CONCENTRATIONS (Special Australian Correspondent—N.Z.P.A.) Reed. 10.25 p.m. Sydney, March 16. The weight of the latest Japanese air assault on Darwin and the movement of heavy troop concentrations along the enemy-held arc of islands overmantling the north of Australia, as notified in to-day’s communioue from South west Pacific Headouarters, give point to General MacArthur’s warning on Monday that the Japanese are gathering strength, possibly for some new excursion. The latest communique notifies more widespread enemy air and shipping activity than has been evident for many months past. “These latest developments in the Pacific war call for the careful attention of the Allied High Command and fresh consideration of what a holding war in our northern waters may entail,” declares an Australian war correspondent. The New York Times’ representative here, Tillman Durdin, comments: “The new activity means the Japanese are growing stronger on both sides of New Guinea. It also means more targets for Allied bombers—and more bombers could be used here if Major-General Kenny’s air force had them.

Australian observers point out that only in the Southern Pacific sector of the long enemy maritime perimeter, stretching from the Burma coast to the outer Solomons, are the Japanese being made to fight hard and incessantly for what they now hold.

The Sydney Herald makes it clear that the case for greater air striking power extends to Admiral Halsey’s as well as to General MacArthur’s command area. The paper adds that “in the area of the Aru Islands and the southwest New Guinea coast the Japanese appear to be building up a nest of bases not dissimilar to that in the Ra-baul-Buin-Faisi region on the other side of New Guinea. Our air attacks have done, no more than interrupt temporarily the enemy’s ant-like industry.”

The statement from General MacArthur’s Headquarters, published today, said these Japanese concentrations “had not yet reached alarming proportions.” No indication is given whether they are offensively or defensively designed. Some United States commentators take the former view.

The American Associated Press military analyst. Glen Babb, says that the concentrations in the Am-boina-Dobo areas suggest strongly that the Japanese are preparing to descend on the Australian northwest coast.

Such an invasion, he says, would not necessarily imply an attempt at permanent occupation. The Japanese might hope to create a diversion, thus enabling the improvement of their situation in other areas where the current outlook is not bright, and at the same time compelling General MacArthur to divert major forces from other theatres—for example north-eastern New Guinea, where the Japanese garrisons at Lae, Salamaua, Madang and Wewak are undei mounting Allied pressure. “Their plight resembles that of their comrades in Papua shortly before the Australians and Americans destroyed Lieut. - General Horii’s army,” declared Glen Babb. “Meanwhile the outcome of the Bismarck Sea battle justifies Allied confidence while awaiting the next Japanese blow. It demonstrated such Allied man-for-man and plane-for-plane superiority that any Japanese adventure is surely marked lor terrible punishment or destruction.” Monday morning's raid on Darwin was one of the heaviest daylight attacks on the area since the initial Japanese raids on February 19, 1942. On that date the enemy sent over 72 bombers escorted by fighters in the morning and 21 bombers in the afternoon. Only four of the enemy planes were shot down.

Spitfires were again responsible for air successes on Monday. No further trace has oeen found by our scouting planes searching at night for the Japanese convoy attacked at Wewak, northern New Guinea, but it was revealed that in our week-end raids two Flying Fortresses each hit two ships in one run. “If a bomber lands its fcombs on one ship in a single run it is considered good bombing, ’ says Tom Yaroorougn, American Associated Press correspondent, who tells the story of the Fortresses’ double success. “The Fortresses found the eightship convoy well after dark in a haze through wnich the moon barely penetrated—just enough to show the wake of a moving ship. The leading plane dropped flares lighting up the snips, and the following pilot, seeing the two ships lined up, made a 90-degree turn straight at them. The first ship hit was a 400 U-ton tanker which went • u Other bombs struck an 8000-ton transport which exploded and burst into flame.” Yarborough says that the leader who dropped the flares then made a bombing run, striking a second 80(X)ton ship and then a destroyer. A spokesman at General MacArthur's Headquarters said to-day that it had been impossible to provide fighter cover for our bombers attacking the Wewak convoy because of the extreme distance. It was possible that some of the vessels which escaped our attacks had entered harbour.