AIRFIELDS NEAR WEWAK BRITISH COAST TOWN RAIDED

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23962, 1 June 1943, Page 5

AIRFIELDS NEAR WEWAK

BRITISH COAST TOWN RAIDED

ATTACK BY ALLIED HEAVY BOMBERS

JAPANESE BASE IN CELEBES RAIDED (Special Australian Corresp.. N.Z.P.A.) ißcc. 10 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 31 In spite of stormy weather General MacArthur’s bombers on Sunday made a damaging strike against Japanese aerodromes near Wewak. Flying Fortresses dropped 13 tons of bombs, including fragmentation bombs and incendiaries, in a raid before dawn on the Wewak and Boram airfields. Today’s communique from South-west Pacific Headquarters reports: “An ammunition dump near the aerodrome was detonated, explosions continuing for 10 minutes. Fuel fires were started and numerous other blazes in the dispersal areas indicated burning aircraft. “Intense anti-aircraft fire initially encountered was considerably diminished by the explosions of 10001b bombs. Many searchlights were active. Five were put out of action by low-level strafing, three being destroyed and two probably destroyed.” Liberators made a 1500-mile round trip to attack Kendari, the important enemy base in Celebes. A jetty and a 3000-ton merchant vessel were the principal targets. The movement of Japanese barges along the New Britain coast was interrupted by a Flying Fortress on armed reconnaissance. At least five barges were destroyed in a sweep covering the Stettin Bay area. The Japanese have been making extensive use of barges to ferry supplies from Rabaul to their outlying garrisons, just as they are employing them to supply their outlying New Guinea bases from Wewak. Only two Spitfire pilots were lost in the big air battle over the Darwin area on May 2. One Australian airman spent 16 days wandering in the bush before he was found by trackers. His aeroplane came down in the sea about 10 miles off the coast, but how he came ashore and the story of his subsequent wanderings is not known. He is still in hospital. Two Japanese airmen have been taken prisoner jrom an island north of Australia. They were members of the crew of a float-plane which was shot down in the Arafura Sea. A third member of the crew died. The Japanese airmen spent several days in a rubber raft before they drifted ashore. Their aeroplane was shot down on May 11 by a Beaufighter which was protecting a small Allied convoy.

CHILDREN KILLED IN CHURCH ATTACK BY TWENTY-ONE ENEMY PLANES (Rec. 8 p.m ) LONDON, May 31. The bodies of 21 children and one teacher have been recovered from a parish church which German Focke Wulfs bombed in a south-west coast town yesterday afternoon. The Berlin radio says that the town was Torquay Most of the children were very young. The victims included a number of children from an orphanage. The church, in which a special service was being held, was practically laid in ruins. Workers late last night were still searching the ruins. Several houses were also destroyed, a number of people being killed, and others left homeless. Several teachers and 15 children are missing from the bombed church, but some may not have been in the building. Between 40 and 50 children from an infant school, assembled in a nearby parish hall, escaped injury. If the raid had been 10 minutes later it would have endangered the whole gathering, at which there are usually 100 children. The raid on the town vbas'made by 21 aeroplanes, one-third of which were turned back by vigorous anti-aircraft fire. The others machine-gunned beaches, causing casualties, including a man who was shot dead beside his young son. who was shot through the foot. The raiders then indiscriminately bombed the town. Three large hotels and many dwellings were badly damaged, and some shops demolished. It is believed that five of the raiders were destroyed. Twelv® Focke Wulf 190's attacked two East Anglian towns late yesterday. One was shot down into the sea and the crew was rescued by a lifeboat. Two others are believed to have been damaged. An empty church was wrecked and a hotel and other buildings badly damaged. It has been revealed that 39 children an a five teachers were killed on January 30. when a day raider’s bomb hit Cat'ord School, Lewisham. When he landed at his base after shooting down a Focke Wulf over Guernsey after an 80-mile chase this afternoon, a Typhoon pilot found he had flown bade with a piece of the enemy aircraft's cowling lodged in his radiator, says the Air Ministry. This Focke Wulf'was one of those destroyed in the raid yesterday by Focke Wulfs on a south-west coast town. Three other raiders were destroyed by antiaircraft fire.

RESCUE OF BOMBER CREW

LIFEBOAT DROPPED FROM AEROPLANE (BOW) RUGBY. May 30, An air-borne lifeboat for dropping by parachute to shipwrecked bomber crews was recently used for the first time to rescue the crew of a Halifax bomber which was forced down six miles from England. An air-sea rescue Hudson dropped a lifeboat from 1000 feet. It alighted within 20 yards- of the dinghy in which the Halifax crew was awaiting help. The crew got the engines going in a few minutes and set off for England at six knots under air protection. The lifeboat contains two motors, full changes of clothing, medical supplies, pyrotechnics, a portable wireless set, and sails and oars as well as petrol to travel a considerable distance. MORE EARTHQUAKES IN GERMANY (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, May 31. According to the Stuttgart radio, about 50 major and minor earthquakes were registered at Wurtemburg between the morning of May 29 and the night of May 30. Further shocks are expected, but there is no cause for alarm, says the radio.