DAMAGE DONE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1943, Page 4

DAMAGE DONE

■' ' IN JAPANESE AIR RAID ON MILNE BAY DISCUSSION OF RELATIVE STRENGTH. ‘INCREASED SUPPLY OF PLANES ; NEEDED. (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Referring to the Japanese attack on Milne Bay, in eastern New Guinea, the Minister of Supply (Mr Beasley) said: "News has reached me that fires are raging in New Guinea from a new attack by the Japanese. Losses have been incurred—losses which cost human lives, materials and supplies.” ..The Allied forces repulsed a Japanese effort to capture Milne Bay last September. Since that time only light and infrequent raids had been made on the base by enemy planes. The last raid was on March 26. The heaviest air activity of the war ’.in this theatre is expected during the •next few weeks. It is believed that :;once they have regrouped their plane ‘.strength to fill gaps created by the loss of 76 machines in battle over Oro Bay and Port . Moresby, the Japanese will strike again with great force. VARYING ESTIMATES. ‘‘Only Japan knows with certainty where the truth rests among the varying estimates made by Allied leaders of her strength and intentions in the Southern Pacific,” says the “Sydney Morning Herald” in an editorial today. "Her commanders must find , the statements of Generals MacArthur and Blarney, Colonel Knox'and Mr Curtin ..very interesting. Perhaps some of ‘them are intended to confuse and deceive the enemy; to the Australian ■public they are not a little perplexing.” War commentators,' discussing General MacArthur’s striking statement on the vital importance of holding air supremacy in this theatre, point out -that Rabaul, in New Britain, has usually been regarded as the limit of effective heavy bombing by the Allied •air forces. This range was extended to Kavieng, in New Ireland, in the action of April 2, 3 and 4. The extension, however, was made possibly only by expert navigation, the conservation of fuel, and the skill of specially selected veteran airmen. Japanese naval forces concentrated to support any major offensive could cruise in safety within two days’ steam of the Allied forward bases. The Sydney “Herald” suggests that such enemy naval forces are now gathered at Truk, the powerful Japanese base in the Carolines. “Indications are that the Japane'se are determined to force a showdown in the air,” writes a war correspondent at General MacArthur's headquarters. “Violent and sustained assaults can be expected on our far northern outposts. Inevitably attrition in air material and resources will impose an enormous strain on 'Allied combat personnel. Only once since the Pacific war began —at Oro Bay, New Guinea, last Sunday, when 45 enemy planes were shot out of action —have we met the Japanese on anything like equal terms in the air. The problem must be met by increasing the supply of planes to the United States Pacific Air Force and the R.A.A.F.” Allied fighters protecting Port Moresby in Monday’s raid by 105 Japanese aircraft were heavily outnumbered. Although more than a third of the enemy force was destroyed, Allied airmen who took part in the action expressed the opinion that if more allied fighters had been available, few of the raiding force would have returned to their bases.