QUICKENED TEMPO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1943, Page 3

QUICKENED TEMPO

AIR ATTACKS IN SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC DESTRUCTION OF SHIPPING AT RABAUL. FUGITIVES HUNTED DOWN IN PAPUA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, January 25. The air war throughout the South-west Pacific is maintaining its quickened tempo. For the sixth time in eight days Rabaul has been attacked, airfields being the targets for Flying Fortresses yesterday. Large fires were burning when the bombers turned for home. For the first time in several months, General MacArthur’s communique today makes no reference to land fighting, and is devoted exclusively to the air operations. No further mention is made of the Japanese shipping concentration at Rabaul, where Allied bombers sank or crippled vessels aggregating 70,000 tons during the past week. Possible hits are today claimed for a night reconnaissance bomber which attacked a Japanese vessel in the Solomons Sea (between New Britain and the northern Solomons). Lae and Salamaua, the important Japanese bases on the north New Guinea coast, have been raided daily during the past 10 days, and further to the west along the coastline Madang has been raided 11 times and Finschhafen nine times in 15 days. Our bombers again attacked targets on Timor and in the Arafura Sea area, where the Japanese are increasingly active in developing bases and airfields. No enemy air offensive has been reported for the past 24 hours. Allied land patrols are known to be hunting down small bands of enemy refugees in the sago swamps between Sanananda and Gona. The booty captured recently, it is revealed, included a powerful radio transmitter which was in perfect condition, its range enabling messages to be sent direct to Tokio. The transmitter was taken by the Australian troops who penetrated through chest-deep swamps and thick jungle in the surprise move which paved the way for the collapse of Sanananada. All along the coast Allied patrols have found substantial enemy food supplies, but most of the dumps were out of reach of the beleaguered garrison.