PANIC FLIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1943, Page 4

PANIC FLIGHT

JAPANESE ON THE LAE FRONT FIRST-CLASS EQUIPMENT ABANDONED. AMAZING COLLECTION TAKEN BY AUSTRALIANS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) SYDNEY, September 16. The Australian troops who captured Heath’s Plantation, in their drive down the Markham Valley on Lae, in New Guinea, found all the equipment needed by the Japanese for a long holding action. Yet the position fell after only a few hours’ assault. An amazing collection of first-class equipment was abandoned by the enemy, including new, heavy machineguns still in their packages, light field guns that had fired only a few shots, many mortars,- none of which had been used against our troops, piles of rifles and ammunition, new wireless sets and telephones, sets of English crockery ware and plenty of food. Some of the Japanese at Heath’s Plantation were marines, generally regarded as the cream of the invading force; yet their headquarters was taken after a short, bitter action. There were here the same signs of hasty flight as in the rest of the position. “I think we have proved that the Japanese can’t take it when we get in behind them,” said a senior Australian officer with the western force. “When you are in front, they will resist for days in. their foxholes, waiting till you are perhaps 20 or 30 yards away to let you have it, and will pull trigger to their last gasp, but once they know you are behind them they just panic and bolt.”

Some Japanese soldiers defending the eastern approaches to Lae are reported to have blown themselves up with grenades rather than be captured. The Japanese grenade has to be tapped before it is thrown, and it appears that the enemy soldier’s method of killing himself is to tap the grenade on his head and then hold it to his heart.