ROOTED UP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1943, Page 4

ROOTED UP

BY BOMBS AND SHELLS I — I JAPANESE POSITIONS AT FINSCHHAFEN HUNT AFTER ENEMY SURVIVORS IN RANGES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. In an assault on both flanks, men of the Australian Ninth Division entered the township of Finschhafen on Saturday, through the ruins created by Allied non-stop shuttle bombing and a week of artillery bombardment. Not a single building remained intact and prepared Japanese positions had been rooted up by bombs and shells. RAA F. Vengeance dive-bombers and United States Bostons paved the way for the final phase of the Finschhafen campaign by concentrated attacks on enemy defence positions near Jakakog. The defenders had had no timc j to rally from this bombing when combined land attacks were launched from the Jakakog Spur and the Salankaua Plantation, west of Finschhafen. On the Salankaua flank our troops overran feeble opposition, but 100 Japanese marines were killed at Jakakog before the Australians gained momentum for their final drive into Finschhafen. Small parties of Japanese are being hunted through the Kreutsberg ranges, west of Finschhafen. Some sharp skirmishes have been reported around Satelberg, ten miles north-west of the anchorage. Allied air forces immobilised the Finschhafen air strip for several months while they were held by the enemy, but they are capable of rapid repair and development. Finschhafen airfield is only 85 miles from Cape Gloucester, on the western tip of New Britain, and 330 miles from the main Japanese base at Rabaul, on the north-eastern tip of the island.