Evening star., 1943-05-02
Pacific Front

keeping up lnelr constant JaDOlnG
tactics, Allied flyers struck at the Jap
anese bases in widely separated areas
throughout the week and while none Of
these attacks packed knockout punch
they served at least to keep the Japs of
balance and unable to start knockout
punch of their own.
Just as the British in the critical days
after Dunkirk employed their almost
fatally limited number of planes in a
highly effective program of single smash
ing raids on vital military objectives,
so are the planes under command of
Admiral Halsey and Gen. Macarthur
sent to carefully selected targets to ham,
per the Japs until such time as we are
ready to go into full-scale assault on the
various islands Japan seized in her first
almost unopposed drive toward Australia.
Details of the raid 10 days ago on the
Island of Nauru, in the lower Gilberts,
which were revealed Friday, Illustrated
the care with which targets are selected.
Nauru, which is 1000 miles south of the
great naval base at Truk, serves as an
outer bastion of Truk's defenses, but far
more important, it produces about one
twelfth of the worlds output of phos-
pilates and thus is of tremendous i'm
portance to Japan not only for fertilizer
but for ammunition.
In a guerrilla like raid, big Lberator
bombers in groups of four swept over the
island which con-
Phosphate Works tains only about
Knocked Out 81 square miles, 80
per cent Of which is
phosphate bearing, and dropped their
bombs so effectively on the phosphate
works that it will be many months be-
fore they can again be in production.
+. The airfield and huge tanks of oil and
gasoline were wrecked and raging fires
testified to the effectiveness of the
bombs as the planes sped back home.
Thirty-slx hours later, more Liberators
struck at Tarawa in the Upper Gilberts,
dropping 10000 pounds of bombs on the
airfleld and putting it out of commission.
The weeks actr.ties started Monday
when 10 Jap bomb rs escorted by 20
zeros were asst..~.-.-,sd about 95 miles
north of Guadalcanal and turned back
with the loss of five zeros and two
American planes,
Tuesday Allied grop I'D forces cap
tured the hilltops whicl overlook Mubo
airfield, close by Sal, rnaua on New
Guinea, which the Japs prize SO highly
they risked and lost 21-ship convoy in
Bismarck Sea in a vain effort to REIN
force it.
American planes bombed Lac and
Wewak on New Guinea and 4,0O0-ton
ship was hit and two near misses scored
against another of the same size in the
Arafura Sea near the Aroe Islands
Other raids were made on New Britain
Island on Timor and in far-off Rangoon
where Americans set fire to an oil re-
finery.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
American bombers struck at Amboina
Island and other nearby Jap installa-
tions. while Dutch-manned American
planes struck again at Tmor. The
Shorthand Islands and Bougainville also
were visited with all bombers returning
safely.
Up in the Aleutians area, the bombing
of Kiska was kept up with unabated fury.
Canadian pilots taking part In some of
the raids. MondAy Kiskas was bombed
l3 times, bringing the months total to
l42 raids, and there were indications
that the task Of driving the Japs out
might not Be 20 far distant. In fact