SEVERELY BOMBED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20913, 13 October 1942, Page 3

SEVERELY BOMBED

JAP. PLANE SHIP NO MOVEsIn PAPUA AIR STRAFING KEPT UP (By Teirgrapn—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (10.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Oct. 13. Australian Hudson medium bombers have heavily damaged a 10,000-ton Japanese seaplane tender, leaving it motionless. Two direct hits were scored on the ship as it steamed with a destroyer escort south of St. George’s Channel between New Britain and New Ireland. Twelve Zero fighters were packed, wing-tip to wing-tip, on the upper deck. The tender vessel was first sighted by a lone Hudson on reconnaissance, but other planes of the unit were quickly called to the scene. After the bombing a destroyer was observed to be slowly circling the tender, which appeared to have been severely hit and unable to move under her own power.

No new developments -have been reported in the New Guinea land battle, but some correspondents say that Australian troops have now covered the entire area of the gap through the Owen Stanley Ranges. A headquarters spokesman stated that any delay in the Australian advance was due to the necessary reorganisation of supplies and troops. "There is no indication that we have been slowed down by the enemy,” he said. There is still no information available of the size of the Japanese forces in the area. The latest contacts with enemy patrols are reported to have been made last Friday. Barges Attacked at Buna Havocs and Airacobras on Sunday morning machine-gunned barges on the beach at Buna. It is not known whether these barges were loading or unloading. The strafing planes also raided two unnamed native villages near Buna, both likely places for the enemy to dump stores.

Japanese Officers and men scurried to safety in the nearby hills during the second raid on Rabaul by Flying Fortresses, says the Associated Press correspondent in New Guinea. Major William Hipps, who was aboard one of the bombers, said: “Do not let anyone tell you that those sons of the Emperor like bombs. When approaching Rabaul, we saw long lines of car lights streaming into the hills from the centre of the town. No one was going joy-riding at night as fast as those cars were travelling.” The commanding officer of a bomber said he was proud like every man who participated that what they did not do the first night they did on Saturday. Both missions were entirely successful. The correspondent adds that the crippling blows on R'abaul are believed to have appreciably complicated the Japanese supply and reinforcement problems in both the New Guinea and Solomons theatres.