LAND GAINS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1943, Page 3

LAND GAINS

MADE BY ALLIED TROOPS. IN NORTHERN NEW GUINEA. SYDNEY, April 4. Further gains have been made by the Allied land forces which have been working their way westward along the northern coast of New Guinea. The spokesman at General MacArthur’s headquarters announces the occupation of. Morobe, 65 miles south-east of Salamaua. Morobe at the mouth of the Waria River, is 20 miles across the Papuan border. This process of cleaning out the Japanese from the pockets along the coast has been going on since the end of the Papuan campaign. Recently it was announced that the Mambare sector on the border of Papua and north-east New Guinea had been cleared of the enemy and that since the end of the Buna fighting 700 Japanese had been killed by our troops in their 80 miles’ coastal push. Combined with this land drive, Allied aircraft are increasing the pressure on the beleaguered Japanese garrisons in northern New Guinea. Sweeps have again been made over the enemy's new coastal supply road. GALLANT AIR OFFICER • BRIGADIER-GENERAL RAMEY MISSING. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 3. Paying a tribute to Brigadier-General Howard T. Ramey, commander of the Fifth Bomber Command of the United States Air Force, who has been reported missing in action in New Guinea after he failed to return from a mission General MacArthur stated: “BrigadierGeneral Ramey distinguished himself during the campaign with outstanding courage, skill and leadership. His loss causes deep sorrow throughout the South-west Pacific area.” Brigadier-General Ramey was 47 years of age and was posted to the South-west Pacific in January in succession to Brigadier-General Kenneth Walker, who was lost on a bombing mission. SEVEN TO ONE air losses in pacific. BALANCE AGAINST ENEMY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 3. The War Department announced that American planes have maintained better than a seven-to-one ratio against Japanese aircraft in the first three months of 1943, when they shot down 348 planes, compared with an American loss of 54. ' The tabulation does not include the Japanese planes which were probably destroyed or which were destroyed by flak.