SLOW PROGRESS IN NEW GUINEA

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 240, 12 October 1942, Page 5

SLOW PROGRESS IN NEW GUINEA

SMALL JAP. PATROLS IN THE GAP \ NO SERIOUS 0PP0SITI0N MET

P.A. Special.

SYDNEY, October 11.

Advance Australian troops have been skirmishing with Japanese patrols in central Papua. The encounters occurred in the Myola-Templeton's Crossing area of the Owen Stanley Range, just north of Hell's Gap. To-day's communique from General MacArthur 's Headquarters, however, says that no further contact has occurred with the enemy in the past 24 hours. The Australians ' drive in New Guinea has now crossed the summit of the ranges. Mycla is ten miles beyond the Gap, and only 15 miles from the Japanese-held airfield at Kokoda, at the northern foothills of the ranges. War correspondents say that the Australian advance is still progressing slowly. Enemy patrol activity at the summit of the ranges was on a small scale and, according to the Headquarters spokesman, had no special signincance. The presence of a large enemy force in the area could not be concluded. This was the only organised Japanese activity encountered in 11 days — since the opposing forces clashed at Ioribaima, the first pcsition reoccupied by the Australians in their, drive across the ranges. No reports have been received of large enemy concentrations.

WHERE JAPS MAY STAND. Along the Kokoda trail Allied aircraft continue to attack "targets of opportunity" but the presence of enemy personnel has not been revealed: At the foot of the steep northern slopes of the ranges, the Japanese earlier constructed fortifications near Kokoda. There is no indieation that the Australians have yet begun the descent of these slopes. Nineteen miles north of Kokoda, where the Wairopi bridge crosses the swift-flowing Kumusi River, is increasingly nominated by war commentators as the most favourable and likely point for any Japanese stand. No further Allied air attacks have been made on this repeatedly-dam-aged bridge which, according to the New Guinea correspondent of the New York Times, Mr Byron Darnton, earlier "gained tob great a reputation for durability," because of the rapidity and persistence with which it was repaired by Japanese engineering units.