THREAT TO SINGAPORE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 January 1942, Page 3

THREAT TO SINGAPORE

Enemy Troops Forty-Five Miles Away NAVAL ACTION ON COAST THIRTEEN JAPANESE PLANES SHOT DOWN OVER RANGOON LONDON, January 29. The threat to Singapore is not diminishing. Enemy troops are now reported 45 miles to the north-west of the city. On the east coast Australian troops carried out a successful action in which 250 of the enemy were killed. The Admiralty announces that his Majesty’s destroyer Thanet and his Majesty’s Australian destroyer Vampire on the night of January 26 intercepted a Japanese cruiser and three destroyers off Endau, south-east Malay (where enemy troops were recently landed), and at once attacked. The enemy retired, but after returning the fire. We sank one of the Japanese destroyers and damaged another, and the enemy sank H.M.S. Thanet (about 900 tons and buiit toward the end of the last war). It is hoped that many of the British personnel managed to reach the shore. In Burma, no change is reported in the Tenasserim area but there has been slight activity further south. An agency correspondent reports that three enemy air attacks were made over the Rangoon area today. One report says that 13 Japanese planes were shot down for certain and five more probably destroyed. General MacArthur’s artillery fire broke up Japanese infantry attacks on the right and left flanks of his front. Enemy air activity was confined to reconnaissance flights.