GREAT VICTORIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20875, 29 August 1942, Page 3

GREAT VICTORIES

ALLIED FIGHTERS MILNE BAY BATTLE FIGHTING IN JUNGLE (By Telegraph—Presß Assn. —Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (11 a.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 28. Important fighting is developing in !the heavy jungle country around Milne Bay, 220 miles from Port Moresby whtsre the Japanese forces landed on Wednesday morning. "Contact is being maintained and fighting is in progress,” the spokesman of the South-West Pacific General Headquarters told war correspondents. The Japanese attack is directed against Allied land installations. The spokesman added that while the communique from General MacArthur’s Headquarters makes only brief reference to the fighting between the opposing land forces, it tells an inspiring story of further smashing Allied victories m fierce air battles War correspondents say that the air above Milne Bay was thick with planes almost throughout Thursday With the dawn, Allied fighters began machine-gunning enemy barges and supply dumps ashore. In the battles that developed in this sector and Buna, 12 Japanese planes were shot down, including dive-bombers. Two ■ more were probably destroyed and seven damaged. The latest air victories brought the total 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 m have perfected a technique for offsetting these advantages. Destroyed on Ground The progressive total destruction at the new enemy airfield at Buna reached 23 on Thursday when medium bombers, with a fighter escort, again attacked the field. Ten Zeros endeavoured to fight off the attackers. Of these nine were either destroyed or damaged, while the Allied forces emerged unscathed. The Allied losses in a week’s spectacular air fighting so far are only two planes. War correspondents say that the Allied Kittyhawk fighters mowed down the Japanese as they waded ashore from barges. The Milne Bay beach was strewn with invasion barges burned to a cinder and for 100yds 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 the air over Milne Bay on Thursday when six enemy fighters and two dive-bombers wete shot down in 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 plantation country which could be converted into aerodromes for planes to attack Port Moresby and the mainland of Australia. Jungle Battlefield The present scene of the land fighting is dense jungle, traversed only by narrow tracks. Extremely bad weather during the past few days has turned these tracks into morasses. The mud in places is 3ft. deep. Communication from the fighting zone is said to be difficult and news, therefore, is restricted. Enemy planes made two raids on (he Australian mainland on Thursday. In a night attack on Darwin, two enemy bombers caused slight damage, while at Broome minor damage was sustained in a night raid by two enemy seaplanes.