“MATTER OF TIME”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1943, Page 4

“MATTER OF TIME”

CLEANING OUT JAPANESE ON GUADALCANAL VIEWS OF AMERICAN OFFICERS RATIO OF LOSSES VASTLY AGAINST ENEMY. IN MEN, SHIPS & AIRCRAFT. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) WASHINGTON, January 14. “Cleaning out the Japanese on Guadalcanal is just a matter of time," declared a high-ranking American officer on the island. “Nobody can stand the kind of losses they have been having,” he added. “Fifteen Japanese are bekilled for each American lost.” Since August, the combined United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Forces in the Solomons have destroyed 800 Japanese fighters, according to Colonel Laverne Saunders, commander of the Army heavy bombardment forces. The ratio of JapaneseAmerican plane losses is six to one. The American aircraft-carrier Hornet, lost in action in the Solomons, had sunk or damaged at least eighteen enemy ships, according to a statement by a Navy spokesman. All but 200 of the crew of 2,900 were rescued by destroyers before the carrier sank. “The American destroyer Laffey died a noble death in the Battle of the Solomons on November 12,” writes an Associated Press correspondent. “The Laffey had just silenced a Japanese cruiser when she saw the huge bulk of an enemy battleship slashing through the darkness at 25 knots. The Laffey rocketed straight towards the battleship, in an apparent head-on suicide’ thrust. Lieutenant-Commander Hank, the Laffey’s commander, released a salvo at the right moment and two of them pierced the giant’s side. The bows of the two vessels crossed so closely that an alert Japanese on the forward deck could have tossed a hand grenade on to the destroyer’s deck. The Laffey, in passing, turned her five-inch guns on the battleship’s bridge, shooting it away. Her thrust isolated the Laffey, with an enemy battleship astern, another on the port beam and two large destroyers on the port bow. The Laffey sank one destroyer and set another ablaze before she was destroyed by a salvo from the 14-inch guns of the first battleship.” .