500 Tons of Explosives Dropped on Tuesday

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 63, 17 March 1944, Page 5

500 Tons of Explosives Dropped on Tuesday

(By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) Received Thursday, 9.25 p.m. SYDNEY, March 16. Wewak, once the strongest Japanese base in New Guinea, has been the target for a heavy Allied aerial pounding on four consecutive days. The latest raid was made on Tuesday, 171 tons of oombs being dropped on Boram airfield and Brandi plantation. Of 30 intercepting Zeros 'eight were destroyed. This brings the Japanese fighter losses over Wewak to 73 planes shot out of action in four days. The base has been blasted with more than 600 tons of bombs in that time. Smoke from the fuel dumps set on fire in Tuesday’s attack blanketed the entire target area. Our bombers and fighters expended 5C,000 rounds of ammunition in low-level strafing runs, silencing a number of antiaircraft guns. Altogether MacArthur’s bombers on Tuesday dropped nearly 500 tons of explosives on enemy bases throughout the Southwest Pacific. Liberators delivered 88 tons on Rabaul (New Britain). Although Japanese fighters had been in evidence there on Monday, Tuesday’s raid went on uninterrupted. Nearly 70 tons of bombs were dropped on Tadji airfield at Aitape beyond Wewak on the Northeast New Guinea coast, where a parked plane was destroyed and the runway damaged. More than 200 bombers attacked Japanese positions northeast of the American oeachhead at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville Island (Northern Solomons) with 120 tons of bombs. There are no further reports of the ground fighting in this area since the strong Japanese attack was repulsed a few days ago. The enemy lost 1000 killed. The Americans employed flamethrowers with deadly effect. In New Guinea Australian troops driving through Mintjim Valley are now astride the motor road to the Japanese coastal base of Bogadjim at a point 400 yards beyond Daumoina, the terminus of the road. They met with no serious opposition to their advance and it is evident that the pressure from the Americans moving along the coast from Saidor as well as from the Australians is forcing the Japanese to Withdraw back to Bogadjim. There are no further reports of the ground situation in the Admiralty Islands, but it is revealed that American naval construction units which went ashore with the first reinforcements to recondition the Momote airstrip played an important part in holding the enemy counterattacks which followed the landing. By night they defended a section of the front and during the day they worked on the airstrip as well as building roads and ramps for landing craft. Captain Jay Robbins, of Texas, a Lightning fighter pilot, has destroyed 13 Japanese planes in four successive engagements. His score—three, four, four, two—is believed to be the highest number of enemy aircraft destroyed in combat by any Southwest Pacific fighter pilot in the same number of encounters.