EXTENDING THEIR OPERATIONS ON GUADALCANAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1943, Page 3

EXTENDING THEIR OPERATIONS ON GUADALCANAL

Following on Forced Withdrawal j' of Japanese GOOD DEAL OF EQUIPMENT CAPTURED ALLIED AIR AND LAND ACTIVITY IN NEW GUINEA LONDON, February 10. In the Solomons, United States ground forces are extending their operations on Guadalcanal Island, following the forced withdrawal of the Japanese, and have advanced iq two directions, capturing a good deal of enemy equipment. (A message yesterday reported the United States Secretary for the Navy, Colonel Knox, as stating that his department’s information partly confirmed that the Japanese had evacuated Guadalcanal except for a few small isolated groups, which were in refuge in jungle valleys where death or surrender were the only alternatives). 1 The Associated Press of America quotes a naval staff officer in Washington as saying: “We are now going to take the offensive.” ' The Japanese losses in the Guadalcanal area, he said, were’ some 30,000 to 50,000 men and more than 1100 aircraft. Seventyone Japanese ships were sunk and 11 more probably sunk. Allied planes attacked enemy positions on Russell Island and in the New Georgia group. In New Guinea, Allied bombers have made another heavy raid on the Japanese base at Lae. Allied land forces are probing deeply into the Japanese positions a few miles south of Salamaua. Australian troops started this attack last Monday.