MILNE BAY LANDING

Evening Star, Issue 24287, 31 August 1942, Page 3

MILNE BAY LANDING

TREACHEROUS JUNGLE TRACKS

(N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY, Aug. 29. General Sir Thomas Blarney, Com-mander-in-Chief of the Allied Land Forces, emphasised that the actions in New Guinea and the Solomons are part o fono campaign, which must continue until erne side or the other _is driven out of the South-west Pacific, which must absorb tremendous _ resources. General Blarney considers that the Milne Bay landing is part of Japan’s general plan of offensive-de-fensive action. The Japanese, he said, were trying to extend their frontiers to deny us laud and air bases from which to attack their more important bases within the protected zone. The enemy move, he said, was assisted by bad weather. Under favourable conditions the convoy would have been shattered.

Communication difficulties still restrict the news of the Milne Bay battle, which is being fought in some of the most treacherous jungle tracts in the world. Rain has fallen almost incessantly, and the Australian troops had to wade knee-deep in mud to reach the positions taken up in preparation for the enemy landing.

Adjustments have been made in. the equipment of the Australian soldiers,

enabling them to light in the jungle under the best possible conditions. No estimate has yet been made of the numerical strength of the Japanese landing party, nor of the casualties inflicted on the enemy.

“ Hopes that, despite the audacious sally into Milne Bay, the tide has begun to turn against the Japanese in the Pacific, have been encouraged by the brilliant series of victories won by the Allied air forces this week,” says the 1 Sydney Morning Herald,’ in a leading article. “ The breaking of the spell of the Zero fighter augurs well for the course of the war in the north.” To reinforce her air strength in the Solomons and Now Guinea sectors, Japan is believed to have withdrawn planes from fronts as far distant as Burma. SPECIAL JAPANESE FOOTWEAR (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) (Hoc. 9.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 31. Japanese soldiers are known to the New Guinea natives as the “ two toes men,” because of the tracks left in the mud by their two-pronged shoes. These light-weight shoes have a separate compartment for big toes, enabling the wearer to climb trees more easily and quickly, to overcome steep or muddy obstacles which would delay a soldier in ordinary heavy boots.