RABAUL SHATTERED

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

RABAUL SHATTERED

MASS RAID BY FORTRESS ES MAIN JAP. BASE CRIPPLED.

P.A. Cable.

SYDNEY, Oct. 11.

Flying Fortresses are claimed to have turned Rabaul, the chief Japanese supply hase in the New Guinea area, into a "Pacific Coventry." In two mass raids, the largest concentrations of these Allied heavy bombers ever to operate in the South-west Pacific have dropped 100 tons of high explosives and incendiaries on the base, wrecking jetties, machine -shops, barracks, supply dumps, anti -aircraft and searchlight positions, and setting fire to at least one ship. Fieree blazes from burning shore installations were visible 90 miles away as our bombers headed for home. The two devastating raids were made early on Friday and Saturday mornings. On each occasion Catalina flying-boats loaded with incendiaries preceded the big bombers. They lit fires which guided the Fortresses on to their targets. Pilots who took part in the raids say that the blaze lighted up Rabaul "as if the Japanese were holding an ill-timed victory celebration." Considerable importance is attached to these raids, which are eloquent of the rising of Allied air power in this theatre. The attacks were undoubtedly designed to cripple Japanese attempts to build up an offensive from their Rabaul. base against the Ameri-can-held islands in the Solomons, where a new enemy drive has been expected. Not a single Allied bomber was lost in either raid, in spite of intense barrages of anti-aireraft fire put up by the enemy. JAP. AIR FORCE PINNED DOWN. It has been revealed that the previous heavy raid on Rabaul by aircraft of General MacArthur's Command, when 12 tons of bombs were dropped, was carried out to co-ordi-nate with the attack by U.S. carrierbased planes on enemy shipping off Bougainville Island in the Solomons. Five vessels, including a heavy cruiser, were hit by planes from the carrier. The object of this raid on

Rabaul was to keep the Japanese aircraft grounded. Following Friday morning's raid, a single Flying Fortress on reconnaissance near Rabaul was attacked by three Zero fighters over St. George's Channel, separating New Britain and New Ireland. In a fierce air battle, two of the Zeros were shot down and the third driven off. The Fortress returned safely to its base. Lae, the enemy base in northern New Guinea, has also been heavily attacked. On Friday, North American medium bombers dropped 16 tons of bombs on the aerodrome and the dispersal areas and installations. Beaufigiiters co-operated in the attack, raking huts, storehouses and anti-aircraft positions with cannon and machine-gun fire. There was no attempt at fighter interception, all our planes returning safely. After Rabaul, Lae is Japan's main air base in the .New Guinea area and ■ its proximity to Port Moresby makes it an important target. HAMPERING ENEMY AIR EFFORT. Continuing the widespread Allied air attacks against Japanese positions, medium bombers made a midnight raid on the airfield at Buka, in the Solomons, causing numerous fires. Continued raids on their airfields are seriously hampering the Japanese air effort in the South Pacific. Washington reports state that the Japanese plane losses in the Solomons now exceed 250, the ratio of plane losses having sometimes been as high as ten to one. North of Australia, Hudson bombers completed the destruction of a Japanese merchant vessel bombed earlier at Saumlakki in the Tenimber Islands. Large fires were started when bombs were dropped on the enemyoccupied quarter of Dilli, on Timor Island, where Australian ground troops continued their magnificent guerilla resistance to the invader.