10 MILES FROM KOKODA

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 247, 20 October 1942, Page 5

10 MILES FROM KOKODA

JAPANESE COUNTER-ATTACK REPULSED WITH HEAVY LOSSES.

P.A. Special.

SYDNEY, Oct. 19.

The Japanese are hanging tenaciously to their positions in heights of the Owen Stanley Range, but the Allied troops are cntinuing their advance. Fighting has moved north of Templeton's Crossing, and is now near Eora Creek, a village only ten miles (less than eigiit hours' march) from the key village of Kokoda at the northern foothills of the railges. On Sunday night the Japanese made a series of counterattacks — -their first since the fall of loribaiwa on October 1. They were repulsed with heavy casualties. Allied troops have captured mortars, light machine-guns and other equipment. The extent of our losses has not been reported. The Japanese defences have been revealed to be in considerable depth. Posts were found in all stages of the latest Allied two-mile advance, the enemy being blasted out oy fianking patrols and mortar fire. Supporting our ground troops, Allied aircraft strafed the Wairopa area. Allied air activity has also included raids on Manus Island in the Admiralty group, on Tileolo, 70 miles off the coast of New Britain, and on Mubo, inland from Salamaua. A dock and an enemy-occupied village on Tileolo Island were set on fire. At Mubo the attack caused fires and troop casualties.