SKIRMISHING IN CENTRAL PAPUA

Southland Times, Issue 24872, 12 October 1942, Page 5

SKIRMISHING IN CENTRAL PAPUA

Australians Across Summit Of Ranges (Special Australian Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 9.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, October 11. Advance Australian troops have been skirmishing with Japanese patrols in Central Papua'. Encounters have occurred in the Myola-Templeton’s Crossing area of the Owen Stanley Range, just north of Hell’s Gap. Today’s communique from General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters, however, says that no further contact has occurred with the enemy in the past 24 hours. The Australians’ New Guinea drive has now crossed the summit of the ranges. Myola is 10 miles beyond the Gap and only 15 miles from the Jap-anese-held airfield at Kokoda. at the northern foothills of the ranges. War correspondents say the Australian advance is still making progress. Enemy patrol activity at the summit of the ranges was on a small scale and, according to the headquarters spokesman, had no special significance. The presence of a large enemy force in the area could not be taken for granted. Tliis was the only organized Japanese •activity encountered in 11 days—since the opposing forces clashed at loribaiwa, the first position reoccupied by the Australians in their drive across the range. No reports have been received of large enemy concentrations. ATTACKS ALONG TRAIL Along the Kokoda trail Allied aircraft continue to attack “targets of opportunity,” but the presence of enemy personnel has not been revealed. At the foot of the steep northern slopes of the ranges the Japanese had earlier constructed fortifications near Kokoda. There is no indication that the Australians have yet begun the descent of these slopes. Nineteen miles north of Kokoda, where the Wairopi bridge crosses the swift flowing Kumusi river, is increasingly nominated by war commentators as the most favourable and likely point for any Japanese stand. No further Allied air attacks have been made on this repeatedly-damaged bridge, which, according to The New York Times New Guinea correspondent, Byron Darnton, earlier “gained too great a reputation for durability” because, of the rapidity and persistence with which it was repaired by Japanese engineering units. General MacArthur, as well as General Sir Thomas Blarney, commander of the Allied land forces, was recently at the front in New Guinea. General MacArthur travelled some distance up the Owen Stanley trail from Port Moresby. HAND-GRENADES USED < BY JAPANESE Thrower Blows Into Weapon (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, October 11. “Before the peculiar hand-grenade used by the Japanese in New Guinea is used the thrower has to blow into it,” says a wounded Australian soldier now back from the fighting in the Owen Stanley Range. “The Japanese thought our grenades worked on the same principle. One day we saw an enemy party with some of our grenades they had captured. One Japanese soldier removed the pin and began blowing into the grenade. It blew him to pieces.” Stories of almost incredible hardships along the precipitous tracks of the New Guinea mountains are told by sick and wounded troops returning to Australia. They tell of nights spent in the open, lying in the mud under drenching rain, of the devotion of the natives and of the stubborn bravery of the Japanese soldiers, some of whom are more than six feet tall. The properly trained Australian commando is superior to the Japanese, claim these returned soldiers. They base their claim on the fact that Australian casualties in a series of harassing raids on enemy bases at Lae and Salamaua have been practically nil. Most of the Australian raids in this area were made at night. “We would watch an enemy post for days,” one soldier explained. “We would learn the strength of the enemy force and its routine. Each of our men would be given a certain job to do. Then we would hop in, clean the place up and disappear in the jungle.” “You have to kill the Japanese to stop them,” declared another man. “You can wound them severely, but they still keep coming, even if they can only crawl, shooting all the time.”