PORT MORESBY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1942, Page 4

PORT MORESBY

VITAL STRATEGIC . IMPORTANCE ALLIED & ENEMY AIMS. PROBLEMS OF AIR AND SEA ACTION. (By W. E. Lucas, in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) AN ADVANCED ALLIED BASE, May 9. A road running miles into a tropical jungle 10 degrees south of the equator and 7,000 miles from San Francisco is one of America’s first lines of defence. The road runs from Port Moresby on the southern coast of . New Guinea into the rich rubber -bearing lands of the interior. Over it most days in the week American fighter pilots are shooting down Japanese raiders and from airports along its length, American bombers set out on their missions against Japanese “invasion bases” at Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea and Rabaul in New Britain. Since the first raid on February 3, thousands of bombs have been showered on this countryside. I have just spent some days in this Pacific bulwark. There is something peculariarly incongruous in the peace and grandeur of this tropical island as a backdrop to the defacing activities of the war. BEAUTY AMD DEFENCE. But it is the tropical jungle and the great mountain barrier that towers 13,000 feet that make the beauty of the land and at the same time constitute the main defences of the Allied New Guinea force against the Japanese.

Port Moresby depends for its existence upon the Australian mainland 600 miles away and upon a ribbon of road, which is the spinal column of this battlefront. For three months the Japanese have been hammering at the port, road, and air fields. Port Moresby admittedly has been virtually evacuated. The tattered skeletons of houses that have been bombed lie starkly on the hillsides around the bay. Others that remain whole are shuttered and empty. The main street is littered with the contents of shops lying where bombs have blasted them.

Tourist hotels invite you through open doors into empty halls. Along the road that climbs over the hills behind and winds through the junglecovered plains beyond there are signs of battle; splintered houses and shattered native huts, bomb craters, and burnt patches where lucky hits found small dumps. DEFENDERS “GONE BUSH." You can bump down the dusty road and see little signs of anything except trucks or an occasional staff car. The New Guinea defence force has gone “bush.” Thousands of men are living and working around the clock in tris steamy tropical heat. It’s a tough front. Mosquitoes, flies, snakes, and torrential tropical rains make life burdensome day and night. The food men eat mostly is canned, as the country itself produces nothing. New Guinea must be reduced by the Japanese before penetration into New Hebrides and New Caledonia becomes a safe operation. Port Moresby is the'last remaining Allied spearhead threatening the left flank of the Japanese battlefront which stretches as far as the Indian border.

FOCAL POINT IN AREA.

It is> atzthis moment the focal point in the Southwest Pacific area. The strategic importance of Port Moresby is the reason for the daily communiques from General MacArthur’s headquarters reporting Japanese raids and Allied counter-attacks on Lae, Salamaua, and Rabaul. The Japanese have tried to knock cut the Allied air fields and port; the United Nations forces are trying to render impotent the Japanese bases from which aircraft can co-operate with a sea-borne invasion of Port Moresby. The 170 miles that separates Lae from Port Moresby is a six-week trek through jungle and swamp over mountain ranges by tracks known only to few natives and fewer white men. So far the Japanese haven’t succeeded in their object of breaking up Allied countermeasures. During the days I was at this front the weight of Allied aerial attacks were greater than the Japanese raids on Port Moresby. Since February 3 the enemy lias lost his overwhelming air superiority. The

Japanese have given us time to prepare land defences against an invasion and to accumulate air striking power which can and has recently dealt better than blow for blow.

AIR POWER DECISIVE. Cn balance the Japanese have stiffer problems to solve than the Allies and with each passing week their difficulties mount. In this Pacific battle area land forces are ancillary. It is only in the air that there is freedom of movement. From Rabaul to the Australian mainland is farther than from New York to Chicago. Action over these great distances by land and sea is only possible where there is control of the air. Supplies and men are movable onward only if they are safe from bombing at-< tack. During the preliminary stages now being fought American fighter and bomber pilots have been playing a part which may prove decisive.