ALLIED AIR FORCES SCORE SUCCESS

Waikato Times, Volume 130, Issue 21664, 26 February 1942, Page 5

ALLIED AIR FORCES SCORE SUCCESS

THIRTY ENEMY AEROPLANES DESTROYED JAPANESE INCREASING THEIR PRESSURE LONDON, February 25 Allied air forces have scored their greatest successes of the Burma campaign bv shooting down 30 Japanese aeroplanes. Another seven machines are believed to have been destroyed. Bombers also attacked two troopships in the river near Moulmein and left them enveloped in flames.

With the Allied defence lines 60 miles north-east of Rangoon the curfew lias been imposed on the city. The Chinese Government spokesman at Chungking gave little hope that the hard-pressed British in Lower Burma would be reinforced by the Chinese troops who are pouring into Burma because, he said, none so far had reached the southern front.

The battle of the Bilin and Sittang Rivers has brought the Japanese perilously near Rangoon, which faces siege, says the Times. The reported fall of Pegu, 50 miles northeast of the capital, thus cutting the railway to the Burma Road, indicates that the situation is desperate.