ALLIES ON TOP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1943, Page 4

ALLIES ON TOP

IN WAR AGAINST JAPAN SIR T. BEAM EV ON ENEMY INFERIORITY. METTLE OF AUSTRALIANS & AMERICANS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. “We are now on top—well over the crest —and are going to give the enemy all that is coming to him. Ycu will have your share in that,” said General Sir T. Blarney to veteran A.I.F. troops when he reviewed them in New Guinea recently. “The Japanese are not nearly so sure of themselves as they were before they tried out the mettle of the Australian troops,” General Blarney added. “The Japanese have been taught never to run, they have been taught that they are superior, but they are forgetting ii. When the Americans landed at Kiska, in the Aleutians, this month, the Japanese had gone. They had learned something from Buna and Guadalcanal. Near Salamaua, some days ago. Japanese ran again, this time screaming and leaving new equipment behind them.” General Blarney said the Japanese were not intelligent. They were inferior. No intelligent race would be foolish enough to strike at the most highly industrialised nation in the world—the United States—as the Japanese did when they attacked Pearl Harbour. The Australians had been first to prove that the Western soldier —the product of modern civilisation, training and education—was superior to the Japanese.

HEAVY LOSSES SUFFERED BY JAPANESE IN NEW GUINEA. DESPERATE EFFORTS TO REGAIN RIDGES. (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) SYDNEY This Daty. The Japanese have sustained heavy casualties in the fighting before Salamaua in New Guinea. On Saturday they launched several costly counter-attacks to preserve their hard-pressed positions west and south-west of the Salamaua airstrip. At some points along the line, the Australian troops were forced to give ground slightly. Fighting is taking place in difficult mountain and jungle country, within four miles of Salamaua township, with the Japanese trying desperately to regain the commanding ridges which the Australians stormed and occupied last week. There is no later news of the American force in the coastal sector, whose artillery was recently reported to be shelling the Salamaua airfield. In the Centra/ Solomons the American occupation of Arundel Island brings Vila, the main Japanese air base on Kolombangara Island, within range of Allied artillery. The northern shores of Arundel Island are only about a mile from Vila, where a large Japanese garrison is blockaded. An Australian war correspondent in the Solomons has estimated the number of enemy troops on Kolombangara at 8,000. Signs were found on Arundel Island that there had been Japanese forces there, but they had been evacuated recently. It is believed that there are now no Japanese in the Solomons south of Kolombangara. Arundel Island is a low-lying coral island, about ten miles wide by five miles long, barring the southern entrance to the Kula Gulf. The latest figures released from Admiral Halsey’s Headquarters emphasise the continued Allied air superiority in the Solomons. From July 25 to August 26, 191 Japanese aircraft have been destroyed for the loss of 14 American fighters, the pilots of six of which were saved. American fighters destroyed 100 Zeros, 16 dive-bombers, one medium bomber and fifteen float-planes, while American bombers destroyed 36 Zeros, nine other fighters and two medium bombers. American anti-aircraft fire destroyed one Zero, 13 dive-bombers, six medium bombers and one floatplane.