GRADUAL ADVANCE

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 252, 26 October 1942, Page 5

GRADUAL ADVANCE

0WEN STANLEY BATTLE STUBB0RN JAPANESE STAND

P.A. Special.

SYDNEY, Oct. 25.

Australian troops are assaulting the Japanese positions near Alola village on the last ridge of the Hell's Gap trail. Our forces are stated to be making progress in spite of continued stubborn resistance. The Allied push has gained no substantial ground, however, since the successful flank attack forced the Japanese back from Eora Creek last Thursday. Alola is one and a-half miles north of Eora. Beyond Alola, the trail drops 5000 feet to Kokoda. • The Allied advance has been made with the aid of mortars and machine-guns as tne heaviest weapons. The Japanese, whose supply problems have diminished with the shortening of their lines of communication, have been able to use field guns. Boston attack bombers and Kittyhawk fighters bombed and strafed enemy positions between Deniki and Kokoda. Deniki is about midway between Eora Creek and Kokoda. The Japanese air force has made a sudden though unspectacular reappearance. Early on Saturday morning four flights, each of three planes, dropped bombs on Darwin at widely dispersed points. Only slight darnage was caused. An enemy airraid on the Milne Bay airfleld, causing neither darnage nor casualties, was the first since September 9, after the Australians had cleaned out the Japanese who landed in August. When our bombers attacked the enemy airfleld at Lae, two aircraft were destroyed on the ground and two were probably destroyed.