CLASHES IN SOLOMONS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 62, 6 April 1943, Page 6

CLASHES IN SOLOMONS

SEEN BY OBSERVER ON LAND

Naval clashes in tlu; Solomons area were witnessed by Mr William Hippie, war correspondent with the United States forces, who was on Tulagi Island. "The situation in general looks prett3 r good," he said in an interview at Auckland during a brief visit to New Zealand. Mr Hippie, who is attached to the I Associated Press service, supplying 1300 newspapers in America, is probably the first reporter to have had a bird's-eye view of a full-scalo naval battle. Both actions which he witnessed in the course, of three days, hovfaver, took placc for the most part in the pitch-sblaek darkness of the tropics. In the first battle, oil November 13, said Mr Hippie, the opposing forces were closerly engaged in the vicinity of Tulagi and Guadalcanal for an hour. The Japanese fleet included battleships, The flash and thunder of broadsides were interminable during the main action. Ships which were badly hit sometimes emerged from the darkness in the blinding flash of an explosion, which sent up star-shells in all directions. Sometimes they entered the picture as; a dull red glow, as the internal fires, spread to the hull and quickly increased in intensity. However, sudden or slow, the. end of the strciken ships was the same, and their fate was made all the more certain by the rain of tracer bullets that denoted the presence of aircraft. It was unthinkable, said Mr Hippie, that any-' one could survive such an experience.

Battleship Abandoned Three or four enemy ships blew up after the main action had been broken off, just as daWn broke over the scene. The sun revealed a Japanese battleship tying oft' Savo Island, in Tulagi roadstead, trying to limp away. She had begun to move, out to the open .sea at about two knots when American bombers came over, and she Avas soon abandoned, burning. Two nights later there was - another major conflict in "which battleships were used on both sides* The enemy losses on this occasion included four transports which were beached on the north-west shore of Guadalcanal. They tried desperately to get men and equipment ashore, but none of the equipment reached the land, and the casualties among the troops, estimated at from two to three .divisions strong, were terrific, for planes roared, over them constantly. Mr Hippie formed one of the crew of a seaplane which taxied ovcz the. oil-covered waters, in search of survivors, who were ferried to a ship. Most of. the men in the watieu' were, suffering from exposure and burns; few had gunshot -wounds, but the coating of oil made them look ghastly. Many of the Japanese soldiers anil sailors refused to bd picked up, and dived like ducks under. the surface when the plane came near. They preferred death to capture, and that sentiment was general.