HOLLANDIA AREA

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 191, 11 May 1944, Page 5

HOLLANDIA AREA

Mopping-up By U.S. Patrols 871 JAPANESE DEAD (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—CopyrigUt.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 10. Mopping-up operations by American; patrols in the Hollandia area, Dutch New Guinea, have brought the total of Japanese killed to 871, while 183 enemy trooips have been taken prisoner. West of Hollandia the intensified Allied air offensive against Japanese bases is being maintained., Today’s communique from General MacArthur’s headquarters reports raids on six important -points. Liberators over Jefman Island, Geelvink Bay, on Monday encountered 11 intercepting fighters. They shot down one, with others probably destroyed. One Liberator was lost. Liberators and Mitchells, with a Kittyhawk fighter escort, raided the nearby Sehouten Islands. At Mokmer airfield fires and explosions were caused in the dispersal area. There was no interception. Three small Japanese vessels were attacked in the same area. “In the Wakde-Sarmi sector, about 100 miles west of Hollandia, air patrols strafed fiawar aerodrome. Results have not been reported. “Liberators, Mitchells and Beauforts continued daily pounding of the WewakHansa Bay area, British New Guinea, where remnants of the Japanese Eighteenth Army are concentrating. Large fires were started at Wewak. Allied patrol torpedo-boats sank two barges off Wewak.” Australian troops, driving from Alexishafen, have now reached a point seven miles inland and ten miles north without encountering opposition. Today’s communique from General MacArthur’s headquarters notes the first recorded loss of an Allied, patrol torpedoboat 'in the South-west Pacific. The torpedo J boat was sunk in an engagement with Japanese shore batteries, armoured barges and, floatplanes off Aitara, Bougainville Island, in the Solomons. “It seems unbelievable that we could land such large forces so far north as Hollandia with practically no opposition,” Rear-Admiral Daniel Earbey, who commanded, the amphibious and attack force, told war correspondents. “Up till now,’.’ added Admiral Barbey, “the Allies have'been extraordinarily fortunate in such operations in the Southern Pacific, but we are now approaching the inner rim of the Japanese defences, and future losses may not be so light.”