Evening star., 1944-01-16
|Aussies InnperiI
Key Jap Base on
Huon Peninsula
U. S. Marines Bottle
Way Up Hill $50
On New Britain
By the Associated Press.

strong points in the South Pacific
now appears imminent. Gen.
Douglas Macarthur reported last
night that Australians were
storming into the outskirts of
Sio on New Guinea's Huon Pen
insula and American marines
were battling up the slopes of
Hill $50, dominating Bergen Bay
at Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
Australians captured artillery and
supplies as they pushed shead. The
fall Of Sio, last japanese base on
Huon Peninsula, will open up 100
miles of the Northeast New Guinea
coast for the push toward Madang,
major enemy stronghold.
Caught between the Australians
and Americans; so miles up the coast
near Saidor, the Japanese on Huon
Peninsula have been trying to flee
for week. But American planes
and PIT boats have been steadily
picking off their barges, some while
they were being loaded at Sio.
Fierce Fighting Reported.
Fighting intensified on the wet,
jungle covered slopes of Hill $50,
studded with Japanese pillboxes.
The hill, on the eastern flank of the
marines holding at Cape Gloucester,
overlooks Japanese defenses of Bor-
gen Bay. 1t is so vital the Japs have
sacrificed more than 1000 lives in an
attempt to hold it.
In the Central Pacific United
States 7th Air Force bombers made
four attacks on the Marshall Islands,
sinking a number of ships and leav-
ing shore installations on fire, Ad-
miral Chester w. Nimitz announced
last night at Pearl Harbor.
Raids started with a bombing
and strafing attack on Mill in the
Southern Marshalls where ground
installations were left in flames and
then moved on up to the less fire.
bombed bases in the center
of the island chain.
Cargo Ships Sunk.
Several small craft were damaged
at Wolfe Thursday and a medium
cargo ship sunk in a repeat raid
the next morning. Air bases at Roi
and Namur on Kwajalein atoll were
attacked Friday and installations
left burning. No enemy planes
were encountered in any of the
raids.
A Sunday communique from Allied
headquarters in New Guinea said
Solomons-based planes harassed
enemy airflelds in the Rabaul area
Of New Britain and reported that
six enemy planes under cover of
darkness raided Allied positions at
Munda, New Georgia and Bara-
koma, Vella Lavella, causing some
damage"
Conferences in Washington of 1t.
Gen. George c. Kenney, commander
OF Allied Air Forces in the Southwest
Pacific, and Admiral William F. Hal
sey, jr., naval commander in the
South Pacific, renewed speculation
that heavier blows soon will fall on
the Japanese.
Admiral Halsey, who recently con-
ferred with President Roosevelt and
naval chieftains, commented yester-
day as soon as the European war is
finished well get the equipment we
need to polish off the yellow mon
keys"
Kenney See Roosevelt.
Gen. Kenney was in Washington
for consultation as statistical sum-
maries brought into sharp relief the
one-sided nature of the Pacific air
war. He conferred with President
Roosevelt at the White House yes
terday.
In the last half of 1943 Allied air.
men destroyed about 3,4OO Jap
planes, more than three -fourths of
them in aerial combat, while losing
only 374.
Japanese pilots are we'll trained
and flying good planes. says Maj.
Gen. Willis H. Hale, whose 7th Air
Force has been making almost daily
raids on the Marshall Islands for
two months. But American flyers
and planes are better-at the ratio
8 to in aerial battles.
Japanese antiaircraft gunners
have had SO much practice shooting