COMPLETELY WIPED OUT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1943, Page 3

COMPLETELY WIPED OUT

JAPANESE CONVOY OF 22 SHIPS BOUND FOR LAE

UNDER OVERWHELMING ALLIED AIR ATTACKS

TASK COMPLETED BY LONG-RANGE FIGHTERS Sea Covered With Blazing Wreckage ENEMY LOSS OF FIFTEEN THOUSAND TROOPS TOGETHER WITH NAVAL AND TRANSPORT CREWS LONDON, March 4. Allied Beaufighters today mopped up the remnants of the Japanese convoy of 22 ships which had been attempting’ to reach Lae, in New Guinea. The convoy consisted of 12 transports and 10 warships—cruisers or destroyers. The only surviving units of the convoy, found by the Beaufighters, were three fiercely blazing merchantmen and two shattered destroyers. The Beaufighters swooped down with cannon and machine-guns blazing and pilots saw Japanese soldiers leap into the sea. One Beaufighter pilot said: “The convoy has been wiped out. We got the lot, with the possible exception of one destroyer.’’ With the Japanese ships, a special Australian correspondent reports in a message from Sydney, have been lost about 15,000 troops, who, it is believed, were intended for a new land assault. Fifty-five Japanese fighters which attempted to provide air cover for the convoy have been shot out of action and many others have been damaged. The Allied losses in the war’s most sensational air and sea victory of annihilation were one bomber and three fighters shot down, with other aircraft damaged but able to reach their bases. In this greatest of convoy fights Genera? MacArthur’s air forces have achieved “a victory of such completeness as to assume the proportions of a major disaster to the enemy,’’ to quote today’s headquarters communique, which announces the practical destruction of the entire enemy force. The communique adds: “The decisive success must have an important result on the enemy’s strategic and tactical plans. His campaign, for the time being at least, is completely dislocated.” Another correspondent, giving details of what is perhaps the greatest air versus sea battle of the war, says it is unlikely that a single survivor of the 15,000 Japanese troops and thousands of trained sailors will ever reach land. The sea was covered with blazing wreckage, broken timber, bodies and great patches of oil. All the ships were sunk more than 50 miles from the coast and not a single small boat wasi seen among the wreckage. Flying Fortresses and Liberators carried out the attacks in the first 24 hours. Then Allied medium bombers and long-range fighters swept into action. The attack reached its peak at 10 a.m., when every available type of aircraft battered the convoy.