ONLY REMNANT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1942, Page 3

ONLY REMNANT

LANDED BV JAPANESE IN NEW GUINEA UNDER TERRIFIC AIR ASSAULTS ABOUT 250 MEN GET ASHORE. ACCORDING TO MACARTHUR’S HEADQUARTERS. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 17. Only about 250 Japanese troops are believed to have survived the terrific Allied air assaults made against the latest enemy landing attempts at Kumusi and Mambare, in northern New Guinea. This is an official estimate from General Mac Art hur’s headquarters.

Our fighters and bombers are making ceaseless attacks on the Japanese positions from Buna mission to Mambare estuary. Liberators searching the Gasmata area for the convoy from which the landings were made last Monday, shot down eight Zeros attempting interception. They completed their reconnaissance mission without loss. The Japanese . garrison bitterly defending the Buna-Sanananda beachhead is making a suicide stand because this' is believed to be the personal wish of the Emperor Hirohito. This has been revealed by an enemy prisoner questioned by Allied intelligence officers. The prisoner, a 24-year-old lance corporal of No. 3 company of the Hazumi mountain artillery, said he had been told that the Em'peror. hearing that a crisis was imminent at Buna, asked that the beach-head be "defended to the last man.” No fresh Allied gains arc reported in the Buna land battle, but today’s communique from General MacArthur’s headquarters says that “pressure on the enemy is slowly increasing.” The fiercest fighting is in a coconut grove south ’of the Government station at Buna. ASSAULT ON BUNA. In a delayed dispatch, the American United Press war correspondent, Frank Hewlett, who was the only reporter to witness the American entry into Buna village, says the victory was no “pushover.” He adds that “it rained even harder than usual on the eve of the attack, when the lean, -tired and dirty Americans moved heavy cases of hand grenades, shells and bullets toward the front in preparation of a dawn attack. This opened with a 10 minutes’ mortar barrage, in which 400 heavy bombs plastered the village only 100 yards ahead of the advancing infantry.

“Attacks were launched from two sides, the Americans storming and overwhelming pillboxes and machine-gun nests in the face of direct fire. The village was found filled with craters from aerial and artillery bombardments. “At 9 o’clock the commander of the attacking forces emulated the earlier alliterative feat of the successful Australian commander at Gona by dispatching the message, ‘Buna busted.’ A few hours later, Americans in Buna were told to cease hunting souvenirs and start hunting Japanese stragglers. “Most of the Americans secured for themselves a pair of rubber-soled tabis (Japanese canvas shoes). The enemy equipment generally was found to be not of the best. but. as at Gona, the Japanese fixed positions were excellent.” SAFETY MARGIN WIDENED CONSIDERABLY. BUT PROGRESS VERY SLOW. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 17. The capture of Buna is a significant measure of the enormous improvement in the south-west Pacific military situation since last September, says the “Christian Science Monitor” military writer, Josenh Harsch. “Till October,” he says, “there was a very real question whether we would be able to hold Australia and New Zealand, but now the United Nations safety margin has been widened so that the Japanese no longer threaten to overwhelm these outpost bases.” Harsch says the Allies are progressing toward the establishment of a secure holding front in the South-West Pacific which, however, is not yet completely secure and will not be secure till Rabaul is in Allied hands. Nevertheless the Japanese threat to bur positions is clearly dwindling. “But our rate of progress is painfully slow,” he adds. “While the Japanese in this theatre are far from idle, they have delayed us so long at Guadalcanal that further progress .from that point toward Rabaul must be at least as methodical ’ and painstaking as last month’s progress toward Buna. “It will mean going from island to island, blasting the Japanese foot by foot. It is a long way to Rabaul and Buna is only one step on General MacArthur’s rear road. He must force his way along the jungle-fringed coast of northern New Guinea and must capture Salamaua and Lae before the final attack against New Britain and Rabaul.”