RINGED ABOUT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1943, Page 4

RINGED ABOUT

JAPANESE AT BAIROKO HARBOUR SAVE FOR NARROW LANE TO SEA. AMERICAN SUCCESSES IN NEW GEORGIA. (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) ' SYDNEY, This Day. United States troops have completed the encirclement of the Japanese garrison at Bairoko Harbour, the last enemy position in New Georgia Island. The garrison’s only chance of escape is to attempt a night withdrawal in small boats to Kolombangara Island, ten miles to the north-west. The encirclement was effected when an American column which had skirted the swamps on the approach to Bairoko from the right reached the Bairoko River, two miles south-west of the harbour, and joined advance patrols in the Enogai Inlet area, four miles from Bairoko. The Japanese are now fighting desperately to prevent the Americans cutting off their lane of escape to the sea.

The commander of the United States Army forces in the Solomons, MajorGeneral Oscar 'Griswold, has-sent messages to Admiral Halsey and General Harmon, expressing great satisfaction at the remarkable co-operation of all Navy, Army and Marine services at sea, on land and in the air. An Australian war correspondent in the area says the fall of Munda finally came when the Americans dynamited the Japanese from Kokengolo Hill, near the airstrip. This hill was honeycombed with .tunnels. The enemy forces could not be induced to surrender —so they were dynamited. An enemy explosives store was detonated .with such terrific force that some Americans on the far side of the hill were injured by flying coral. GRIM DETERAUNATION OF JAPANESE SOLDIERS. ONE PILLBOX CRUSHED WITH BULLDOZER. (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Ample evidence appears of the grim determination of the surviving members of the Japanese garrison at Munda at the conclusion of a 36-day campaign. Of three Japanese in one dugout, two had to be killed with grenades, while a third refused to surrender, and it required eight bullets to end his resistance.

One of the highlights of battle was when, after he had been fired on from an enemy pillbox, Angy Seabee, a naval workman, leapt on to a bulldozer, and, calling to infantry, drove over the pillbox and crushed it. The infantry finished off the occupants with grenades. Conscript Chinese workmen were taken prisoner. They had been forced at the bayonet point on to a ship at Hong Kong, shackled, and brought to work at Munda.

Giving evidence of the excellence of the American supply system, a.rorrespondent says 15,000 doughnuts and coffee daily reached the front line fighters at Munda.