FRESH ENEMY MOVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1943, Page 3

FRESH ENEMY MOVE

MAV HAVE BEEN FORESTALLED WELL-TIMED ALLIED ATTACK. ON JAPANESE ISLAND ARC. SYDNEY, April 4. The continued destruction of Japanese shipping, again emphasising the value of greater Allied air striking power in the southern Pacific, may have forestalled a fresh enemy move. Warnings were sounded late last week of heavily increased Japanese shipping and air concentrations to the north of Australia, and Allied airmen report that enemy’s plane strength at the operational bases along their island arc has been doubled since the Papuan campaign ended in January. “The Japanese bases in the New Britain-New Ireland area, as well as in New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, are becoming stronger every day,” says Harold Guard, the New York “World-Telegram” correspondent at General MacArthur’s headquarters. He quotes Allied air officers as saying that the Allied bomber and long-range fighter strength is not sufficient to prevent the Japanese from strengthening their bases which ring northern Australia. Australian airmen who have recently returned from Britain, told Mr. Guard that the best corrective would be British Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster bombers. These carry huge bomb loads ( and are easier to handle at low levels than the American heavy bombers, which are built for high flying. RAIDS ON GUADALCANAL. Reports from Guadalcanal say that the latest' Japanese air attacks on Henderson Airfield have been the heaviest since the American forces won the battle for the island. Recently the enemy!

has been employing increasingly strong forces against this objective. A Washington report says that the Secretary of the Navy, Colonel Knox, told a Press conference that the latest attack was made by 30 to 40 Japanese planes, and that it confirmed the American knowledge that the enemy had been building up his air strength in the area for some time. He added that the raid might be viewed as a Japanese effort to retaliate for the punishment which the American planes have dealt out to the enemy bases in daily doses for many weeks.