JAPANESE FORCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 April 1943, Page 3

JAPANESE FORCES

NORTH OF AUSTRALIA NOW TWICE AS LARGE AS WHEN NEW GUNEA ADVANCE BEGAN. STATEMENT BY AUSTRALIAN ARMY MINISTER. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 26. “General Blarney spoke truly when he said that with 5 per cent, of the British and American aircraft output the Allied forces in the South-West Pacific could attack the enemy,” stated the Minister of the Army, Mr Forde. The Minister said that both in land and air forces the Japanese stength to the north of Australia was now twice as large as wnen Japan began tne earlier southward advance through New Guinea.

ALLIED AIR BLOWS AGAINST ENEMY BASES. IN NEW GUINEA. JAPANESE CONVOY RETIRES OUT OF RANGE. * (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 26. General MacArthur’s bombers maintained the stepped-up offensive against Japanese bases yesterday. Nine bases were attacked, two of the raids beingon a heavy scale. No Japanese offensive activity is reported in today s communique. It is now almost a fortnight since the last of the enemy’s big scale raids on Allied bases in New Guinea.

The strongest Allied air blows yesterday were against the Japanese northern New Guinea bases of Wewak and Madang. Attacks were made in darkness and large fires were started at Wewak aerodrome. Shore installations at Madang heavily strafed. Reconnaissance raids were made in Finschhafen and Saidor. In the Mubo area, attack planes bombed and strafed Japanese forward positions. No change is reported in the ground situation in this area.

In the Arafura and Banda Seas area, four light attacks were made on enemy bases by medium bombers and longrange fighters. The large Japanese convoy which was sighted 300 miles north-west of Wewak has now steamed out of Allied bomber range. When last seen the convoy, which consisted of a number of merchantmen, with escorting warships, was headed for Palau, the naval base west of the Caroline lislands and east of the Philippines.

The convoy was first seen and attacked on Saturday morning by a sinble Liberator bomber patrolling about 700 miles north of Port Morseby. Because the Liberator was so far from its base, its action was restricted. The result of the bombing was not observed. No subsequent attacks have been reported, and the latest communique from General MacArthur’s headquarters contains no indication that any of the ships were sunk or damaged. The last large Japanese convoy sighted in the Bismarck Sea was totally destroyed by Allied planes in two days on March 2 and 3. Since their big defeat in this battle, Japanese shipping moving from New Britain and New Ireland bases has been making a wide detour to keep outside the limits of our effective heavy bomber range. It wal thought that the convoy sighted on Saturday might be taking this precaution, in an attempt to reach Wewak, but fol-, lowing the Liberator’s attack, the vessels changed to a more northerly course.

A notable feature absent from General MacArthur’s communique today was Japanese fighter interception over the enemy’s northern New Guinea bases. Zeros have recently been patrolling in this area in considerable strength. AT HEAVY ODDS FIVE JAPANESE FIGHTERS SHOT DOWN. AT COST OF TWO AMERICAN PLANES.

(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY, April 26

A United States navy communique states: “In the South Pacific, early on Sunday, four Corsair fighters strafed Japanese installations on Kolombangara Island in the Central Solomons. Later the same group of Corsairs sighted ten enemy bombers, escorted by twenty Zeros, 95 miles north-west of Lunga Point, on Guadalcanal Island. During the aerial combat which followed five Zeros were shot down. Two United States planes failed to return.”