Wewak Abandoned As Main Air Base
(Special Australian Correspondent) Received Sunday, 9.60 p.m. SYDNEY, March 19. Smashing .Allied aerial blows have forced the Japanese to cease using Wewak as their chief New Guinea air base. The main enemy air concentrations have been withdrawn 210 miles northwest to Hollandia, inside the border of Dutch New Guinea. Wewak once ranked second in importance to Rabaui (New Britain) among enemy air bases in the Southwest Pacific. On Thursday and Friday on their sixth and seventh successive day attacks, Allied bombers encountered no Japanese planes over the area. Between March 9 and March 16 Allied airmen shot down 82 Japanese aircraft and probably destroyed 26 more over Wewak. In their sevon-day offensive our aircraft have dropped about 1100 tons of bombs on Wewak’s defences. On Friday when the bomb load was 194 tons, a number of enemy planes were destroyed on the ground at Boram airfield and numerous fires v;ere seen in the supply and personnel areas where enemy casualties were probably heavy.
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Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 65, 20 March 1944, Page 5
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169Wewak Abandoned As Main Air Base Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 65, 20 March 1944, Page 5
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