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WIPED OUT

JAPANESE PAPUA ARMY FORCE OF 15,000 MEN ADDITIONAL THOUSANDS LOST IN LANDINGS. TOLL OF ENEMY AIRCRAFT AND SHIPS. SYDNEY, January 8. The Japanese Paptfa army of 15,000 men, commanded by Lieut.-General Ilorii, has been annihilated. Complete destruction of the enemy was a primary objective of the Allied campaign. A,ll the shattered remnant of a oncesubstantial force is entrenched at Sanananda, and General MacArthur’s communique today states that Ihe enemy positions have now been completely enveloped. A General Headquarters spokesman told war correspondents today, ‘‘Our forces have now completed their regrouping preparatory to launching a general offensive. Patrol activity is intense and our pressure is increasing. The Japanese are overwhelmingly outnumbered and outgunned. They occupy little more than a mile of barricade and pillbox defences which have been sited on carefully-chosen positions.” Sanananda was the original landing point for the Japanese Buna force on July 22. DETAILS OF ENEMY FORCE. Today’s headquarters communique, the longest on record, incorporates details of the Papuan campaign. The size of the Japanese force has come as a surprise to some observers. It is revealed that, in addition to infantry, General Horii had at his disposal anti-aircraft guns .artillery, mountain artillery and horsed cavalry, apart from specialised units such as engineers, construction and pontoon units, and medical organisations. Enemy aircraft losses since the opening campaign on July 23 are given as 333 destroyed, 89 probably destroyed, and 117 damaged. In addition, “incidents of combat and flight” must have caused the loss of many more enemy planes. Japanese naval losses inflicted by our aircraft since July 23 are: Sunk, destroyed or seriously damaged, six cruisers, 13 destroyers, one destroyer tender, two seaplane tenders, two gunboats, 44 large to medium merchant ships, 39 small to medium merchant ships, and 150 to 200 landing barges. In addition to the Papua army of 15,000 troops now destroyed, several thousand more troops were drowned in convoy sinkings and attempted landings.

Though the Japanese positions at Sanananda are formidable, and a bloodless finish to the Papuan campaign is not expected, the destruction of the enemy’s Buna mission force is held to have written the practical finish to what the Sydney “Sun” war correspondent describes as “one of the biggest little wars in history.” DESOLATION AND DEATH. He adds: “Buna mission presented a scene of destruction like a picture postcard of shattered Flanders when the Allied troops moved in. Storms of shells, mortar fire and bullets had torn and ravaged what had been one of the loveliest spots on the north Papuan coast. The acrid smell of cordite, amatol and grenade explosions, and the snarl of tommy-guns as the remaining pillboxes were blasted, marked the end. The final attack occupied six hours.” The “Sydney Morning Herald” war correspondent writes; “Japanese officers, soldiers and marines, and unfortunate shared the democratic mud of the battlefield for their deathbeds.” “Down below the earth there were more Japanese dead. These victims of the cannons of Australian tanks, grenades and home-made bombs, hurled by Allied infantry, had died in dugouts and foxholes in which they had fought for weeks. In one dugout alone were nearly 100 Japanese dead. Australian decontamination parties paused in their grim work from time to time during the past few days to attend the burials of their own comrades in a coconut plantatation near the battlefield. Padres conducted simple ceremonies, while, stripped to the waist, Diggers stood about honouring their fallen colleagues.”

LONDON COMMENT ON FEDERAL PREMIER'S WARNING. LONDON, January 7. “Mr Curtin has done well to give warning that recent Allied successes in the Pacific must not encourage the slightest relaxation of effort in the struggle with such a formidable and well-prepared enemy,” declares “The Times” editorially. “Japan’s strategic position,” it adds, “has not been seriously weakened, and’ her southern chain of occupied forts from the northern Solomons to Lae, from Lae to Timor, and from Timor to Sumatra, Singapore and Akyab, is equally valuable as a defensive barrier or as a springboard for an offensive.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19430109.2.35

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1943, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
665

WIPED OUT Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1943, Page 3

WIPED OUT Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1943, Page 3

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