DISMAL FAILURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 April 1943, Page 3

DISMAL FAILURE

OF POWERFUL JAPANESE EFFORT GENERAL MACARTHUR’S COMMENT. DESTRUCTION OF IMMEDIATE ENEMY PLANS. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 13. A Japanese raid on Port Moresby shortly before noon yesterday, when 100 bombers and fighters participated, was the heaviest air blow ever struck by the enemy in the entire southern Pacific area. The attack was a dismal failure, costing the Japanese more than onethird of their raiding force. General MacArthur’s latest communique, after giving details of the bitter air battle, states: “It is believed that the enemy’s air offensive has been blunted and his immediate plans dislocated.” Yesterday’s big raid on Port Moresby, the first in some months, followed immediately an official warning from General MacArthur’s headquarters that a new Japanese offensive in this theatre “might attain a considerable scale of effort.” Allied reconnaissance had shown major increases in enemy combat plane strength—chiefly at bases in New Guinea and New Britain.

The score of more than 50 enemy planes shot down in a single day’s fighting, and of 76 destroyed in two days, is comparable with the results of the great Lae convoy battle. It is felt that these crippling losses must compel the enemy to reconsider his tactics and that the new victory will gain still another breathing spell for the Allied forces in the South-West Pacific. The brilliance of the Allied success is illustrated by the revelation that in yesterday’s battle we lost only one plane destroyed and a second missing. DESPERATE CLASHES.

Japanese aircraft yesterday ranged over extensive areas of New Guinea and the sea to the north, Dogfights occurred, both before and after the raid on Port Moresby, and the communique reports a number of desperate clashes between packs of Zeros and our bombers on armed reconnaissance. Of particular significance was a large scale Allied attack on the three great enemy aerodromes at Rabaul, in New Britain, the main dispersal point of Japanese air strength in this theatre. Over Port Moresby, Lockheed Lightnings, Kittyhawks and Airacobas comprised the Allied defensive force which turned the Japanese attack into a disastrous defeat. The battle raged at great heights and in the clouds. The first contact was made with the enemy formation about 10 o’clock yesterday morning. The Japanese raiders, including medium bombers and Zeros of the latest type, were then about 60 miles north of Port Moresby.

When our first fighter flights dived to the attack, the oncoming enemy planes were flying across the Owen Stanleys in close formation at altitudes of between 18,000 and 23,200 feet. Zeros above and in the rear protected the bombers In this first clash, three enemy bombers crashed in flames near the famous Hell’s Gap Pass, the centre of so much bitter ground fighting in the Owen Stanley campaign. But the enemy force closed its formation, and flew on toward Port Moresby. Our fighters persisted in their attacks, and a fourth Japanese bomber went down over Red Scar Bay, 40 miles north-west of Port Moresby. A Zero spiralled in flames into the jungle at Yodda, 10 miles from Kokoda. TEST OF DEFENCES. After a running fight lasting an hour, the battle reached its fiercest pitch as the raiding enemy force neared Port Moresby. Here, oui’ fighters turned the Japanese bombers off their targets and the battle was dispersed over a wide area. Meanwhile, anti-aircraft gunners at Port Moresby, facing their stiffest test, fired a barrage of more than 1000 rounds. Full details of the battle are not yet but Allied pilots declare that the calibre of the Japanese Zero pilots was remarkably high. An analysis of the air battle has still to be released, but in the fighting which occurred over Port Moresby, 15 enemy bombers and nine fighters were definitely destroyed, and four bombers and one fighter were probably des ; troyed. This was the 106th raid on Port Moresby. The last big one was on May 18 last year, when 49 enemy planes took part.