NIGHTMARE WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1942, Page 4

NIGHTMARE WAR

JAPANESE SUICIDE STAND ■ IN PAPUA ADOPTION OF NEW METHODS SUGGESTED BY SYDNEY NEWSPAPERS. NEED OF DIRECT NAVAL SUPPORT (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, Noon.) SYDNEY, This Day. “There is nightmarish quality in the Papuan fighting that the public would, do well to absorb,” declares the “Sydney Morning Herald” editorially today, commenting on the fall of Buna after an exhausting jungle campaign of 77 days. The paper adds that the difficulties of expelling the enemy from New Guinea by ground and air action alone are becoming so painfully apparent as to counsel a re-examination of the strategic problems involved. If the Japanese succeed in getting any considerable number of men ashore at Kumusi and Mambare, the Allied ground forces will have another hard job to do when the Buna zone has been finally cleared up. “Without direct naval support, General MacArthur faces a long and costly fight in New Guinea, says the “Daily Telegraph.” “The Japanese suicide stand in Papua was made to divert Allied effort and delay attacks on Lae and Salamaua. Thus the enemy gained time to strengthen these northern bridgeheads considerably. In Gona and Buna tough and fanatical Japanese soldiers were ready to die hopelessly rather than surrender. In Lae and Salamaua the going will be even harder. And we cannot attack Rabaul until we have eliminated every Japanese stronghold on the New Guinea mainland.” “The daily communiques recording the final assault on the Japanese strongholds in Papua have fanned out into a full length serial story,” writes the “Telegraph” war correspondent, “but the reasons for the slow pace of the concluding stages of ‘the campaign should not be construed as alibis. The Allied forces on the North Papuan beachhead have been numerically superior and have had heavier arms and stronger air support than the enemy. Compared with the finale of the present campaign, the 120-mile trudge over the Owen Stanley gorges, and ravines was a pleasant weekend hike. Marshes, quicksands and swamps had virtually created a malarial minefield around the Japanese positions. Behind the swamps the Japanese had burrowed into mud trenches like an army of soldier crabs. After being blasted for weeks, any normal garrison would have accepted the inevitability of defeat and surrendered, but the mission of the Papuan Japanese is to kill and die. The cause —fatalism, fanaticism or plain fear —does not matter. The whole effect has been to make them as dangerous as a • rattlesnake with a grievance.” It is expected that the final battle for the beachhead will be fought at Sanananda, which has been carefully prepared as the core of the Japanese defence structure in the Buna-Gona area. NO AIR OPPOSITION TO AMERICAN ATTACKS ON NEW GEORGIA. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) WASHINGTON, December 15. A Navy Department communique says United States air forces on December 14 continued to attack Japanese installations and an airfield under construction in the Munda area in New Georgia. Seven Army Flying Fortresses attacked the area during the morning and later in the day a strikinp force of Douglas Dauntless divebombers and Grumman Wildcat fighters attacked the same objectives. No enemy air onoosition was encountered during either attack. HEAVY FIGHTING REPORTED AT BUNA MISSION. LONDON, December 15. Heavy is reported at the Buna Mission, half a mile east of Buna.