JAPANESE CONVOY SHATTERED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 January 1942, Page 3

JAPANESE CONVOY SHATTERED

Americans Claim Sinking of 51 Ships INCLUDING TRANS-PACIFIC LINERS (By Telegraph.—Press Association.— Copyright.) LONDON, January 27. Reports reveal that Dutch and American planes and units of the United States fleet are still pounding the Japanese convoy in the Straits of Macassar, where the greatest single sea disaster suffered by any nation in the present war has befallen Japan. In addition to the Dutch claims, the American forces have sunk at least 51 Japanese ships of all types in the Macassar battle. . , Some of the many transports sent to their doom were transpacific liners of more than 20,000 tons each and probably carried 3000 men each. The smaller vessels, it is believed, carried 1000 each. The majority of these, it is assumed, have been drowned, killed or injured. “We could not miss them,’’ said one Dutch pilot. The Jans were sailing in tight formation. If we had more planes we" ( ild have scored three times more hits.’’ Authorities say this is the first time the Japanese have been caught without air superiority. The object of the convoy, it is thought, was to destroy Dutch strength at its source.