STRUGGLE IN NEW GUINEA

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 285, 31 August 1942, Page 5

STRUGGLE IN NEW GUINEA

Japanese Checked ALLIES’ ADVANTAGE AT MILNE BAY (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 28. Important fighting is developing in the heavy jungle country round Milne Bay, 220 miles from Port Moresby, where the Japanese forces landed on Wednesday morning. “Contact is being maintained and fighting is in progress,” a General Headquarters spokesman • told war correspondents.

The Japanese attack is. directed against Allied land installations, the spokesman adedd. While today’s communique from General MacArthur’s headquarters makes only brief reference to the fighting between the opposing land forces it tells an inspiring story of further smashing Allied victories in fierce air battles. War correspondents say the air above Milue Bay was thick with planes almost throughout Thursday., With the dawn, Allied fighters began machinegunning enemy barges and supply dumps ashore. In the battles that developed in this sector and over Buna 12 Japanese planes were shot down, including divebombers. Two more were probably destroyed and seven damaged. The latest air victories brought the total enemy planes destroyed in the New Guinea area since Monday to 35 with two “probables” and seven others either damage or destroyed.

Despite the Japanese Zero fighter’s admitted superiority in some features, Allied fighter pilots appear , to have perfected a technique of offsetting these advantages. The progressive total destruction at the new enemy airfield at Buna reached 23 planes on Thursday when our medium bombers, with fighter escort, again attacked the field.

Ten Zeros endeavoured to fight off the attackers. Of these nine were either destroyed or damaged while our forces emerged unscathed. The Allied losses in a week’s spectacular air fighting so far are only two planes. War correspondents say that Allied Kittyhawk fighters mowed down the Japanese as they waded ashore from barges at Milne Bay. Invasion Barges Burnt.

The beach was strewn with invasion barges burnt to cinders and for 10b yards inland our fighters have blazed a strip of jungle, ■ destroying the enemy’s supply dumps. Though the enemy landing on Wednesday was made without air protection, Japanese planes were in the air over Milne Bay on Thursday, when six enemy fighters and two dive-bombers were shot down in this sector. This is, the first mention of Japanese dive-bombers over New Guinea for some months. The immediate goal of the enemy appears to be the plantation country which could be converted into aerodromes for planes used for attacking Port Moresby and the mainland of Australia. The present scene of the laud fighting is dense jungle traversed only by narrow tracks. Extremely bad weather during the past few days has turned these tracks into morasses. The mud, in places, is three feet deep, and communications from the fighting zone are said to be difficult. The new’s, therefore, is restricted. Allied Advantage The Allied forces hold the advantage in the fighting in New Guinea, as well as in the .Solomons. The Japanese attempt to move inland from Milne Bay has beep checked. Despite the lack of information about the fighting, the optimistic view expressed by General Blarney is generally reflected. It is emphasized that both actions are part of the one campaign, which must continue till one side or the other is driven out of the South-west. Pacific. General Blarney considers the Milne. Bay landing part of Japan’s general plan for an offensive-defensive action. The enemy is trying Io extend' his frontiers to deny us land air _ bases from which to attack his more important bases within the protected zone. The enemy move, General Blarney said, was assisted by bad weather. Under favourable conditions the convoy would have been shattered. Communication difficulties still restrict nows of the Milne Bay battle, which is being fought in some of the most treacherous jungle tracts in the world. Rain has fallen almost incessantly and Australian troops have had to wade knee-<>ep in mud to reach the positions taken up in preparation for the enemy landing.

Changes in Equipment.

I Adjustments have been made in the ; Australian soldiers’ equipment, enabI ling 'them to tight; in the jungle under the best possible conditions. No estimate has yet been made of t.ho numerical strength of the Jajianese landing I party nor of the casualties inflicted on ! the enemy. ' “Hopes that despite the, audacious sally into Milne Bay the tide had I begun to turn against Hie Japanese in I the Pacific have been encouraged by | a brilliant series of victories won by the Allied air forces this week,” says the ‘‘Sydney Morning Herald” in a leader.

“The breaking of the spell of the Zero tighter augurs well for the course of the war in the north.” To reinforce her air strength in tile SolomonsNew Guinea sectors Japan is believed to have withdrawn planes from fronts as far distant as Bunua,