NOT WON CHEAPLY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1943, Page 3

NOT WON CHEAPLY

ALLIED VICTORY IN NEW GUINEA GENERAL BLAMEY’S REVIEW WONDERS DONE BY TROOPS. EXAMPLES OF JAPANESE SAVAGERY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day. 12.45 p.m.) SYDNEY. This Day. General Sir T. Blarney, Com-mander-in-Chief of the Allied land forces in the South-West Pacific, declares that the Buna area taken by the Allies was the most closely defended he had seen since he was in France in the last war. After inspecting the battlefield between Cape Endaiadre and Buna village, he said: “The troops who took this area did wonders. It was a terrific feat to get here. It was not. a cheap victory by any means. The price had to be paid and the troops stood up and paid it. There are places where you cannot see a yard ahead, and to make a cross-country approach means going up to the waist in stinking mud.” General Blarney added that his inspection had convinced him that the Japanese had prepared the Buna beachhead fortress as a base from which to attack the whole of New Guinea. Asked by an American correspondent what he thought of the American troops who were new to battle, General Blarney said: “They did a good job. The only way to get experience is in war.” Doubts whether the Japanese would have fought as well in the open as they did behind their defences were expressed by the commander. Fighting the Japanese, he said, was not like fighting human beings. The Japanese was a “little barbarian.” Our troops had been baffled by the behaviour of enemy soldiers. One Australian who tried to give assistance to a wounded enemy had been bitten on the finger. Another was seriously wounded. A Japanese had struggled to a sitting position to bite on the cheek an Australian who was helping him.