DISASTROUS DEFEAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1943, Page 3

DISASTROUS DEFEAT

SMASHING ALLIED RAID ON RABAUL 350 TONS OF BOMBS DROPPED. SEVERAL NAVAL SHIPS SEVERELY DAMAGED. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) SYDNEY, October 14. “The enemy has sustained a disastrous defeat from the air attacks at Rabaul,” states General MacArthur’s communique referring to the smashing raid on Rabaul by Allied planes on Tuesday and Wednesday. “With complete secrecy, the mass of our air force was concentrated and launched against his air and naval forces there, using fields made possible by our occupation late in June of island groups north of New Guinea. Recently, we crushed the right wing of his air command at Wewak. This time our objective was his left wing at Rabaul. The division based on Wewak and Rabaul made it possible to use our main mass against first one flank and then the other, thus acquiring in each case superiority of force at the point of combat and destroying the force in detail. A total of 350 tons of bombs was dropped and 250,000 rounds of ammunition fired.” From the battle operations room of the air force in New Guinea where he has been with his senior air commanders, General MacArthur described the attack as a “crushing and decisive defeat for the enemy at a most vital point. Rabaul has been the focus and the very hub of the enemy's main advanced air effort. I think we have broken its back. Almighty God has again blessed our aims.” General MacArthur's communique says that the planes destroyed were approximately 60 per cent of the enemy's accumulated air strength at Rabaul. Hundreds of planes and more than 1000 United States and Australian airmen took part in the attack. Ships severely damaged were: One submarine, 0ne.5000-ton submarine tender, one 6800-ton destroyer tender, and one 7000-ton merchantman.

'This midday attack on Rabaul, which was made on Tuesday and continued yesterday, was the first daylight raid on the big base since last January. It brought the estimated total of Japanese aircraft destroyed, or probably destroyed. in the South-West Pacific since the beginning of August to 1302. A Japanese cargo vessel of 8000 tons was left stranded on a reef near Cape Gloucester, western New Britain, after it had received a direct hit on the stern in an attack by Allied night reconnaissance units. General MacArthur’s latest communique, which is mainly an account of Tuesday’s record Pacific air strike against Rabaul, also reports other widespread Allied operations when Admiral Halsey’s escorted bombers attacked Kahili aerodrome, on Bougainville Island. Fifteen of 23 intercepting Japanese fighters were shot down.