PHILIPPINE BASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 57, 5 September 1944, Page 4

PHILIPPINE BASE

TWO BIG AIR ATTACKS

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) r> a^ «." SYDNEY, September 4. . MirffJSi c main Ja Panese base on S ao' rmosi southerly of the SS PS? e J sl ands * suffered a mass tIS. ? Saturday, More than 50 Liberators pounded the area with 130 ™l of >h °m*>s' Lightnings, which ac£3£ amed the Ambers, established a - ™ *■&?** for long-distance fighter cover. Big fires were left burning. JJavao had also been the target for a heavy attack on Friday, when Liberators dropped 110 tons of bombs and destroyed 38 enemy planes. The , Japanese put only two attack bombers !™L a S2 ll tar? fighter into the air to oppose Saturday's raiding formations. '£««^ hrec were shot down, and not a single_ raider was lost It is apparent," says General MacArthur s communique, "that. the enemy's air force has been driven irom the fields in southern Mindanao to bases further north and west." As well as the Davao port area, the Liberators bombed the Lasang, Licanan and Sasa airfields, after which Lightnings, swooping to treetop level, poured thousands of rounds pi cannon and machine-gun fire into the ground defences.' The base from which the Lightnings operated' in their J reS2 rd ffiSht has not been disclosed. The nearest Allied airfield is at Sansapor, in Dutch New Guinea, 600 miles away. Friday's and Saturday's mass attacks on Davao were presaged by persistent night reconnaissance raids during August. These gained valuable * miormation about Japanese disposi-.^ tions. Further large-scale attacks are predicted.