The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-18
Twelve Days Battle
 Ends In Big Victory
CcOntsnued from Page D

VI CContsnued |5apan would. must in fact, attack rlIsWhere if it could not reRin the Iuiast area.
 nEneAKthur's C0mmunique
 Gen. MacArthur's communique tCday reported the first Japanese xaid on Port Moresby, the Allied base in New Guinea 1000 miles to &lne west of Tulagi, since July "A.
 TWenty-four enemy bombers att tackled . Port Moresby airdrome and it was admitted that they caused damage and casualties.
 Allied fighters went up in chal- 1snge, but the enemy, attacking at high altitude, dropped their bombs and lied before the fighters could efEect contact.
 Tn the Kokoda area of interior New Guinea, just across the Own Stanley mountains 55 miles from New Guinea, strongly reinforced Japanese combat patrols had driven the Allied forces back toward the mountain heights, and 1t was not ruled out here that the enemy might soon try to storm the 5000 foot pass leading down to the Port Moresby side.
 | MacArthur's planes, on recon naissance, dropped their bomb loads yesterday on the townishp of Ka- vieng, on New Ireland Island in the Bismarcks, $50 miles northeast of Port Moresby and $50 miles north west of Tulagi, and on shipping in Its herbor.
 It was indicated that the Allied planes had detected the presence of e Japanese reinforcement fleet, coming from the north, the direc- ton of the Japanese-controled Car Oline Islands, on its way to the Golomons.
 In the northwestern zone, where khe Japanese have major base 500 miles from Darwin on the northern Australia coast, MacArthur's planes made their sixth attack in eight days on Timor Island.
 They bombed enemy troops and Rirplace dispositions and lines of communication.
 
 GOckheed Hudson medium bombers flown by crews of the Royal Aus tralian Air Force.
 Guerrilla Warfare
 (After the receipt in Australia of encouraging reports that Dutch and Australian troops were still resist ing in Timor Island, which the Japanese took at the outset of their Netherlands Indies drive nearly eight months ago, CBS at New York heard British radio broadcast re- porting that Dutch troops aided by natives were conducting widespread guerrilla operations in many Meth erlands East Indies Islands)
 It was learned that Prime Min agter John Curtin of Australia is now holding series of conferences, reported to be of vital strategic im- portance, with southwest Pacific military leaders.
 Reports say that these conferences are linked both to the Solomon IEslands battle, which is outside Mac Arthur's zone, and the necessity of aiding Russia in every conceivable way.
 Any offensive actionfin this zone Gs calculated to aid Russia, at least Indirectly, by causing Japan to think more soberly of essaying its long planned stab in the back at Siberia.
 The Navy'S communique issued at Washington yesterday brought to Australians, as to Americans, the nrst official word for days regard Ing the Solomons, and there was no word in it which did not add to belief that Japan had taken seri- ous blow not only to its prestige but Co its entire position in the northeast Australian zone.
 Navy Proud of Victory Washington, Aug. 18.-UP)-The Navy scored major victory in the solomon Islands in one of the few engagements in the Pacific war in which surface vessels were pitted against surface vessels. The last important battle in which surface vessels slugged it out was during the battle of Java. The United Nations came out second best in that one. More recent battles-those of the Coral Sea and Midway Island-were victories for American forces, but airplanes inflicted all the losses and the opposing fleets never came with In range of each other.
 Although the battle in the Solo, mon Islands was not of the mag nitude of the Coral and Midway battles, its results may be as i'm portant. Defeat of the Japanese de- stroyers and cruisers resulted in successful occupation by Marines of the Solomons.
 The naval battle was a close range fight under cover of darkness when planes were useless. There were losses on both sides-but the Japanese fleet fled and never re- turned.
 The American attack on the Jap anese fleet came during the night of Aug. O-9 = 36 hours after the Ma rines began their successful occu- patton of islands in the Tulagi area. Few details of the battle were available, but naval officers here who have participated in such en-