TORPEDO HITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 January 1942, Page 3

TORPEDO HITS

SCORED BY AMERICAN NAVAL FORCES BESIDES DAMAGE BY GUNFIRE. ENEMY AIRCRAFT ACTIVE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) RUGBY. January 26. The following communique, from the headquarters of the South-West Pacific Command, has been issued by the Dutch Government in London: “On Sunday action by Allied air forces against an enemy convoy in the Macassar Straits continued. American flying fortresses sank a large transport ship and scored a direct hit on one cruiser, while Dutch bombers near Balak Papan, on the coast of Borneo, scored four direct hits on two cruisers and one transport. One of our bombers was lost.”

Further reports from the United States naval forces, which attacked the convoy, showed that five hits were scored with torpedoes, apart from damage inflicted by gunfire. During the past twenty-four hours enemy aircraft have been active in small numbers over a wide area. In an attack on a Netherlands Indies aerodrome two aircraft were shot down by anti-air-craft fire and one by a Dutch fighter.”