SIEGE OF MUBO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 May 1943, Page 4

SIEGE OF MUBO

TIGHT GRIP MAINTAINED BY AUSTRALIANS If’ - FRUSTRATION OF REPEATED ENEMY EFFORTS. TO GET IN REINFORCEMENTS AND SUPPLIES. (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Although no official news has been released this week of the land fighting in the Mubo area of Northern New Guinea, it is believed that patrol actions continue. The latest official report stated that a see-saw battle was in progress, with the Australians hoiding the

advantage. The Japanese forces around Mubo must be feeling the pinch for supplies, since the Australian capture of Bouboudi village three weeks ago cut the enemy’s main trail from Salamaua. The occupation of the village also severed the normal line of retreat for the enemy’s forward troops. So far Japanese attempts to break the Allied land siege of Mubo has been unsuccessful and costly. A concentration of forty barges and large native canoes which was machinegunned in Nassau Bay, ten miles north of Mubo, on Sunday, had been assembled with the evident intention of carrying supplies to Mubo up the Francisco River. These canoes and barges, laden to the waterline, were discovered at the edge of a mangrove swamp and were heavily strafed. Native lakatois (canoes) had been used previously by the Japanese to get supplies to Mubo under cover’ of darkness. The frustration of this attempt by water to break our land siege of Mubo follows earlier and unavailing efforts by air and ground action. The strongest of these was made a week ago, when the Japanese employed 98 bombers, dive-bombers and fighters in co-opera-tion with ground forces. The enemy's air attacks were ineffectual, and his troops suffered heavy casualties. Japanese efforts to move reinforcements to Mubo have also been frustrated by Australian ambush patrols. Allied aircraft give invaluable reconnaissance assistance in watching for enemy troop movements. They continually harass the Japanese forward positions in bombing and strafing attacks.