SMASHING VICTORIES

Evening Star, Issue 24286, 29 August 1942, Page 4

SMASHING VICTORIES

ALLIES COMMAND AIR OVER NEW GUINEA

THIRTY-FIVE JAP. FLAKES DESTROYED

(N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) (Bee. 11.0 a.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 29. important fighting is developing in the heavy jungle country around Milne Bay, 220 miles from Port Moresby, where Japanese forces landed-on Wednesday morning. “Contact is being maintained, and fighting is in progress,” the General Headquarters spokesman told war correspondents. “ The Japanese attack is directed against Allied land installations.” °The spokesman added that, while todav’s communique from General MacArthnr’s headquarters makes only brief reference to the .fighting between the opposing laud forces, it tells an inspiring story of further smashing Allied victories in fierce air battles.

The war correspondents say that the air above Milne Bay was thick with planes almost throughout Thursday. With the dawn, Allied fighters began machine-gunning the enemy barges and supply dumps ashore. In the battles that developed in this sector, and at Buna, 12 Japanese planes were shot down, including dive bombers, and two more were probably destroyed and seven damaged. The latest air victories have brought the total of enemy planes destroyed in the New Guinea area since Monday to 35, with two probables and seven others either damaged or destroyed. Despite the Japanese Zero fighters’ admitted superiority in some features, the Allied fighter pilots appear to have perfected a technique offsetting these advantages.

The progressive total of destruction at the new enemy airfield at Buna reached 23 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.

Allied losses in the week’s spectacular air fighting are so far only two planes. The war correspondents say that the Allied Kittyhawk fighters mowed down the Japanese as they waded ashore from barges. Tho Milne Bay Beach was strewn with invasion barges burned to a cinder, and for 100 yards inland our fighters have blazed a strip of jungle, destroying the enemy’s supply dumps. Although the enemy landing on Wednesday was made without air protection Japanese planes were in tho air over Milne Bay on Thursday, when six enemy fighters and two dive bombers were shot down on this sector. This is the first mention of Japanese dive bombers in New Guinea for some months.

The immediate goal of the enemy appears to be the plantation country, which could he converted into aerodromes for planes attacking Port Moresby and the mainland of Australia. The present scene of land fighting is dense jungle, traversed only by narrow tracks The extremely had weather during tho past few days has turned these tracks into morasses. The mud in places is 3ft deep, and communication from the fighting zone is said to ho difficult, so that the news is restricted.

Enemy planes made two raids on.the Australian mainland on Thursday. In a night attack on Darwin two enemy bombers caused slight damage, while at Broome minor damage was sustained during a night raid by two enemy seaplanes.