NOT OVER YET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 November 1943, Page 3

NOT OVER YET

CAMPAIGN IN FINSCHHAFEN AREA PURSUIT OF DEFEATED JAPANESE. CORNER-STONE OF DEFENCES LOST. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 29. The capture of Satelberg by the A.I.F. last Friday is not the end of the Finschhafen campaign. Survivors of the Japanese Satelberg garrison are now revealed to have made an orderly withdrawal, and will have to be pursued and mopped up. Fresh enemy defences are believed to be concentrated at Wareo, about four miles north of Satelberg. Wareo is already threatened by Australian artillery. However, in losing Satelberg, the Japanese have lost the corner-stone of their mountain defence system, and their position has been further jeopardised by the daring flanking movement of Australian troops who have cut their main escape route. This Australian force, advancing along the north-east New Guinea coast from Finschhafen, captured Pino Hill, which dominates the trail linking Wareo with Bonga, on the coast. Bonga has been an unloading point for barges carrying supplies for the enemy forces in the area. ONE-MAN ACHIEVEMENT. According to correspondents, the success of the final assault was in large measure due to the courage and daring of one man, Sergeant T. C. Derrick, D.C.M., of Adelaide, who “virtually took Satelberg himself.” Derrick, who won the Distinguished Conduct Medal in the Western Desert, although ordered to withdraw from a bullet-swept ridge, destroyed a Japanese strongpoint and breached the Satelberg defences. He was given the honour of raising the “victory flag,” the historic Australian blue ensign which had already been raised at Kokoda, Buna and Lae. “The Japanese pilots we are meeting now are definitely second rate, and they will probably stay that way,” Lieutenant-General Kenney, Commander of the Allied Air Forces in the South-West Pacific, told war correspondents. “I am satisfied that the Japanese do not give their air personnel nearly as much training as we do. They just send them out—and if they lose them there are plenty more. Japan can produce second-rate pilots in unlimited numbers and even if five of them are killed to bring down one of our bombers the Japanese consider they are still ahead in the game.”

ENEMY AIR FORCES

REINFORCED AT RABAUL & WEWAK. JAPANESE LIGHT CRUISER BOMBED. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 29. The Japanese are continuing to reinforce their air strength at bases in the South-West Pacific area. Latest reconnaissance has shown more than 200 enemy machines round Rabaul, New Britain, and just over 100 at Wewak, in north-east New Guinea. More than half the planes at each base are fighters. A direct hit with a 10001 b. bomb on a Japanese light cruiser in St. George’s Channel, between New Britain and New Ireland, is reported by General MacArthur’s communique., today. The fate of the warship is uncertain, but a heavy explosion followed the Liberator’s attack. Mitchell medium bombers, escorted by Lightning fighters, struck against the enemy’s Wewak air concentration on Saturday, heavily pounding both Boram and Wewak fields. Five grounded aircraft were set on fire and about 25 others bombed and strafed with unobserved results. Despite the enemy’s known fighter strength in the area, there was no air interception. Antiaircraft fire brought down one Allied ( plane. In the Solomons, Admiral Halsey’s aircraft have again battered Japanese ail’ bases at Buka and Buin. More than 100 tons of explosives were dropped on the former field, where | five grounded aircraft were damaged. | Allied pilots report that one of the grounded aircraft bore the Nazi swastika insignia on its tail. The Japanese lost eight fighters shot down and seven others probably destroyed, when 10 escorted medium bombers attempted a raid on the Allied positions at Finschhafen. Airacobra and Kittyhawk patrols intercepted the raiders and probably wiped out the entire Japanese fighter escort. In Vitiaz Strait, between New Britain and New Guinea, American motor torpedo-boats intercepted and sank five west-bound barges loaded with 200 troops and artillery. It is believed the troops drowned were intended to reinforce Japanese strength on Huon Peninsula. The latest ground activity in this area and at Empress Augusta _ Bay? Bougainville Island, has been limited to patrolling. A report from Admiral Halsey’s headquarters says more than 1000 Japanese have been killed at Empress Augusta Bay during the past 10 days, bringing the total of enemy dead since the Allied landing on November 2 to more than 2000. American dead and wounded number about 1000. of whom 300 were killed in an artillery duel. f

POLICY OF INVERSION

TOKIO TALES OF SEA VICTORIES. LONDON, November 29. Japan’s version of recent sea engagements reveals the Japanese rulers’ solicitude for the spirit of their people, says “The Times” editorially. Tokio always jumped in first with versions of sea battles, which were invariably hailed as resounding victories for Japan. This procedure has become so regular that a Japanese claim to have sunk a number of American warships is now a sure indication that the Japanese Navy has just suffered serious losses. This policy of inversion is likely to recoil on the heads of its authors. It is significant that while Japan’s rulers find it appropriate to feed the Japanese with fairy tales of non-exsitent victories. Anglo-American spokesmen had to warn their countrymen against excessive optimism. According to the' Tokio radio, General Tojo’s Cabinet has formulated a ten-point programme which is “abso-

lutely indispensable to meet the exigencies of the present war situation. The points include the immediate substantial increase of aeroplane production. increased production in the industrial and food fields, and the strengthening of the defence of Japan against air attacks. '