SERIOUS DAMAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 June 1943, Page 3

SERIOUS DAMAGE

DONE TO JAPANESE' BASE AT WEWAK NIGHT ATTACK BY ALLIED HEAVY BOMBERS. DESTRUCTION OF AIRCRAFT & DUMPS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, June 3. Sixteen Japanese planes on Tuesday raided a new Allied base in north-east New Guinea—Bulldog, 40 miles south of Wau. Slight damage and casualties were caused. Bulldog is at the headwaters of the Lakekamu River, 120 air miles north-west of Port Moresby. Its air strip was used by commercial planes before the war, and it now has a small Allied ground detachment. This raid is reported in General MacArthur's communique today, and it is the first enemy offensive activity for some days. Serious damage to parked aircraft and ammunition dumps is claimed as a result of a heavy raid by Flying Fortresses and Liberators on the Wewak area of northern New Guinea early yesterday morning. The communique says, “Our heavy bombers executed a night attack on enemy aerodromes at But. Wewak and Boram, dropping more •than 24 tons of explosives on runways, dispersal areas and supply installations. Numerous fires and explosions indicated serious destruction or damage to parked aircraft and ammunition dumps. Intense anti-aircraft fire was encountered. All our planes returned.”

Improved flying weather permitted light Allied attacks on other enemy bases.- A single Liberator on a longrange reconnaissance mission strafed villages and barges along the shore at Hollandia, on the north-east coast of "Dutch New Guinea. The same bomber attacked a small enemy cargo vessel 50 miles north-east of Wewak. Liberators and Mitchells, attacking in two waves, raided enemy shipping off Lautem, in Timor. They were intercepted by five Zeros, but drove off the enemy fighters, probably destroying one of them.

NUMEROUS FIRES STARTED IN BOUGAINVILLE HARBOURS. LIBERATORS BOMB JAPANESE SHIPS. (Received This Day. 10.0 a.m.) RUGBY, June 3. A United States Navy Department communique states: “Liberators on May 31 attacked installations at Tinputs Harbour and Numanuma Harbour, on the Ncrth-Eeast coast of Bougainville, in the South Pacific, when numerous large

fires were started. Two small Japanese vessels in Tinputs Harbour were bombed, one being damaged and beached.”