BIG RESERVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1942, Page 3

BIG RESERVES

THROWN IN BY ENEMY ON THE MALAYAN FRONT. PERSISTENT ALLIED AIR ATTACKS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, January 18. The Japanese forces advancing toward Singapore are being strongly attacked from the air. British, Australian and Netherlands planes are constantly active. Gemas, a railway junction which is 130 miles north of Singapore and which advanced enemy units have reached, has been heavily bombed and more than 50 fires were left blazing. The Japanese arc at present throwing in big reserves on the north front. Reconnaissance reported yesterday morning 1000 Japanese infantry trucks lining a 32-miles stretch of road to the rear of the position where the A.I.F. made its first contact on January 14, The Australians’ leader, Major-Gen-eral Bennett, told correspondents, ‘•When the battle starts in northern Johore the Japanese Ah' Force will come en masse. So far things have been going very much oui' way, but we must expect much heavier assaults with tanks and artillery backed up by infantry as well as aircraft.” Our air force, he said, had been doing good reconnaissance work and finding terrific columns of vehicles. GALLANT AUSTRALIANS. Many men at first feared to be missing from the ambushing party on January 14 rejoined their unit after a perilous trip back through enemy-held territary. The captain said his party blew up a bridge and saw over 30 Japanese go sky high with the force of the explosion. A second later they were firing like demons into a Japanese column on a road.

The Australian party fought a running fight all that night and the next day finally reached their own lines with only two casualties. The captain estimated that hig men killed 600 Japanese. This was before the Japanese made contact with our main body, when many more were wiped out.

The whole battalion was unanimous that they beat the enemy fair and square, even though he had tanks. “What drove us back was dive-bomb-ing and machine-gunning from the air. The Australians had to bear the brunt of this unceasing attack all Thursday, our fighters not appearing till the following day.” A correspondent says that when at an Australian Brigade headquarters, an -air-raid warning was sounded, an Australian sentry, jubilant, suddenly shouted, “They are our planes, boys!” A strong force of bombers, escorted by fighters, passed over heading for the Japanese positions. The Australians joined hands and shouted with delight. Though the Australian casualties so far are very small, it is learned that the Japanese killed in the first clash with the A.I.F. were more than double the 200 first reported. At one place alone 152 Japanese corpses were counted, following effective trench-mortar warfare.

A communique issued in Singapore yesterday states that throughout December 16, contact with the enemy>was slight on the eastern part of the front, activity on both sides being confined mainly to patrolling. Artillery was active during the day, harassing enemy forward elements in Gemas. On the western part of the front the enemy succeeded in getting a footing on the south bank of the Muar River (about 111 miles north of Singapore).