RAIDED AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 55, 2 September 1943, Page 5

RAIDED AGAIN

JAP FIELDS AT WEWAK

MORE PLANES SMASHED (Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 1. In another smashing raid on the Japanese aerodromes at Wewak, on the north coast of New Guinea, Allied heavy bombers destroyed on the ground 20 to 25 enemy aircraft, thej majority of them medium bombers. There was no interception by Japanese fighters and all our planes returned. Today's communique from General Mac Arthur's headquarters, detailing this successful attack, says that heavy bombers with ; a strong fighter escort attacked enemy aerodromes and installations at Dagua, But, and Tadji, with 92 tons of 500 and 10001b bombs. At Dagua, 20 to 25 grounded aircraft were destroyed. At But three large fires in the revetments indicated burning aircraft. Huge explosions and fuel fires visible for 50 miles were seen in the dump areas. Heavy destruction of the enemy's recent air reinforcements which were brought up to the main base at Wewak, probably from the Netherlands East Indies, the Philippines, and Formosa, great damage to fields and installations, and the burning of the massed air stores and supplies assembled there have forced the Japs to base their New Guinea air concentrations at Hollandia and further to the rear, where they are dangerously far from the ground garrisons which they were designed to support. OTHER OBJECTIVES. The communique also reports other successful raids on enemy objectives in the South-west Pacific. Medium units dropped 13 tons of explosives on the aerodrome at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, setting fire to five enemy bombers on the ground. Long-range fighters raided an enemy seaplane base at Taberfane, in the Aru Islands, shooting down one floatplane and damaging two others. One Allied fighter failed to return from this raid.

In the New Ireland sector, heavy reconnaissance units bombed a Japanese cargo ship near Kavieng with undisclosed results. An enemy destroyer was bombed and strafed near Cape St.- George. attack planes at ground level bombed and strafed enemy barge hide-outs on the Mape River at Finschhafen.

Air activity in the Solomons area was limited to reconnaissance. ,