WEEK'S LOSSES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 127, 1 June 1942, Page 5

WEEK'S LOSSES

20 JAP. PLANES DOWN

Heavy Raid On Port Moresby

Driven Off

Special Australian Correspondent. SYDNEY, May 31. Japanese fighter planes are being encountered in increasing numbers in the South-west Pacific zone, but Allied fighters continue to score heavily against them. Eighteen Zeros which were flying toward Port Moresby by the coastal route were intercepted by Allied fighters at Hood Bay, 60 miles south-east. Five of the enemy planes were shot down and three damaged in a series of dogfights which ranged up and down the coast, sometimes out to sea and sometimes 30 miles inland over impenetrable jungle. We lost only one plane. The enemy fighters apparently intended to ground strafe Port Moresby, but not one reached the objective. The losses, among the heaviest yet inflicted on Japanese fighters, bring the total enemy losses for the week to 20 fighters destroyed, and 14 damaged and two large bombers and a flying boat damaged. A South-west Pacific communique this morning records air operations in the Solomon Islands. At Kutulagi a seaplane base was bombed, and fires that could be seen for 80 miles were started in fuel dumps, wharves and buildings. At Tanamboga and Gabutu an enemy flying-boat was destroyed and an anti-aircraft gun smashed. Flying conditions have been bad. Allied bombers that flew to Rabual had to fight every inch of the way against a tropical rainstorm. In a night attack a formation of our aircraft bombed the harbour at Dilli, in Portuguese Timor. Direct hits were scored in the target area and all our planes returned from this attack.

Allied reconnaissance reports state that heavy damage has been done at the aerodrome at the advance Japanese base at Lae as a result of recent Allied bombing raids.