TASK NOT EASY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1944, Page 7

TASK NOT EASY

HARASSING THE JAPS

NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN'S PART

(R.N.Z.A.F. OffioSal News Service.) BOUGAINVILLE, August 28. Although enemy air opposition has been wiped put, the work of American and New Zealand bomber and tighter-bomber squadrons pounding at the large Japanese forces in the Northern Solomons . and Bismarcks areas is not easy. • The islands over which they operate are by. no means the inconsequential dots they appear on ordinary maps. Nor is it flat country with the targets wide open. In many places the landscape has the wild, forbidding ruggedness of untrodden regions in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. In others there are seemingly interminable stretches of deep ravine and precipice —a mountain maze of tangled watercourses, gullies, chains and peaks in Which the enemy hides. Over it all there is the choked, green mass of the jungle. Targets are often difficult to locate and much harder to hit. The terrain calls for all the skill the pilots can exercise in making effective runs before the bombs are let .go. A miss means that the attack must be made over again. Diving angles Cannot always be made as per book and approach is also often a matter of skilful improvisation, Ack-ack ..batteries concealed with all the art and cunning by the craftiest enemy that white men have-fought down the span of hist Pry wait for" the man who is overventuresome. By the same token, the man who is a slave to the orthodox may also fall a victim. Formations on bombing missions frequently- encounter dpposition from the enemy s ground batteries, Although aircrews lament the lack of opportunities for engaging the Japs in the air and are apt to understate the element of risk involved in their present tasks they often have to face intense and accurate A-A .fire. In the past fortnight a number of New Zealand Cors?^s haV e ret"mcd from bombing strikes damaged in varying extent by fire from Japanese ground gunners, • ° h£? e good reason for accurate ?w +? c ? 110J s haye been thankful that the sturdy Corsair can take a hammering and still get "them home t? se.5 c.£ au ™of th? close interlocking of SSm^Jk- mts between air and £ u*d J his 3amaSe does not hold up 1 °ffensive. Efficient work by crews speedily places the machines back m service. An aircraft limping m from a raid one afternoon lhnfnf he?ti an£ takes its Place in the line of battle the next morning. Every day, including Sundays, Operations Command informs the engineer officer ?iL *i? umber of aircraft required for toe following day's strikes, together S?thsV^ *nd weight of bombs and the fuse delay to be used. fn°^? C+r vs have never yet to have the exact number, available at the specified time. • Several hundreds of New Zealand families from Auckland to Biufl\ are represented up here, by men who strfe to the waist to get their job done hl« m£ °n? 7} 0 equate "the flies, the heat, the clouds of coral dust, and the Japs m terms of vitriolic, colourful verbiage They are close enough to n h O tb7 ra%n k gnX£. iSn°tOVe/^