LITTLE CHANGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1942, Page 3

LITTLE CHANGE

IN LAND CAMPAIGN IN NEW GUINEA AIR ACTIVITY EXTENDING. INEFFECTIVE ENEMY RAIDS. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 27. More extensive though ineffective Japanese air activity in the SouthWest Pacific area than for several weeks is reported in the latest communique from General . MacArthur’s headquarters. Enemy aircraft were over Darwin, Port Moresby and Milne Bay on Sunday night, but only minor damage was done. Little significance is attached to this increased air activity. It is probable that the Japanese have merely taken advantage of the raiders’ moon to maintain face while the crucial struggle is developing in the Solomons. Allied planes made four raids against the enemy’s .three. Targets at Koepang, Lae, Salamaua, and Kokqda were attacked. The same formation of American B2s’s bombed Lae and Salamaua. Heavy anti-aircraft fire was encountered in both places, but there was no interception. Havocs and Kittyhawks strafed the trail from Kokoda up the Owen Stanleys. No change has occurred in the ground situation in the mountains. The fighting has been described as desultory. The Japanese are still clinging tenaciously to prepared positions near Alola village, only one and a half air miles from Kokoda. They are fending Allied thrusts with artillery and mortar fire. Our advancing troops in the Owen Stanleys have found bullet-riddled and burnt-out huts in every village previously occupied by the Japanese. The discovery of dead enemy soldiers in the jungle is additional evidence of the effectiveness of the Allied air attacks.

A Japanese soldier gave himself up

to a native woman and a ten-year-old boy at Milne Bay on Friday. He was one of a .party of 20 which escaped into the, .bush after the Milne Bay invasion was smashed last month.