FIGHT IN BATAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1942, Page 4

FIGHT IN BATAN

BY NO MEANS REGARDED AS LOST BRAVE AMERICAN STAND. AGAINST ODDS OF TWENTY TO ONE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) RUGBY, March 17. It is stated in Washington that Major-General Wainwright will remain in Batan to carry on the battle which General MacArthur, now in supreme command of the Allied forces in Australia, has been conducting with such gallantry and success for over three months. It is estimated that the United States forces in the Philippines are outnumbered by twenty to one. At the same time, a War Office spokesman in Washington stressed the fact that General MacArthur’s transfer in no way indicated that Batan was considered lost. ALLIED TROOPS IN AUSTRALIA. A Canberra message states that the r Australian Army Minister (Mr Forde) announced that Allied troops who had escaped to Australia from northern theatres of war were being used in the Australian Army. Some had been allotted temporarily to the militia. Dutch troops reaching Australia from the Indies were being reorganised under their own commanders, to take their place in the field beside the Australians. Mr Forde added: “We are confident that these men, with actual experience of fighting the Japanese, will prove a valuable acquisition to our forces.”