Pacific News-Review

Notes And Comment On

The Progress Of The War

From Oct. 15 To Nov. 15

Oct, 15: Continuing their extraordinary advance along the whole Russo-German front, from Kiev to the Black Sea, the Red armies have stormed the key town of Melitopol, and thus have launched a new offensive calculated to cut off the Germans’ escape from the Crimea via the Perekop isthmus.

Oct. 16: Yesterday, 60 Flying Fortresses were lost in a heavy daylight attack on Schweinlurt, Bavaria (the ball and roller-bearing manufacturing centre of Germany). This is the biggest loss yet sustained by the Allies in a single raid.

Oct. 18: The Germans are throwing in division after division, from Kiev to the Black Sea, in a terrible backs-to-the-wall fight, to save their line along the Dnieper River.

Oct. 18: Last week saw bitter fighting in the Ramu Valley, New Guinea, when advancing Australian troops pushed back the Jap rearguard. The Australians are now getting effective air-support.

Oct. 19: The Japanese have lost a fur ther 104 planes (and probably 43 more) in South-west Pacific operations, from Wewak to the Solomons.

Oct. 19: It is believed that the fate of the German lines in the Crimea and the western Ukraine has been sealed by a major Russian break-through on the western bank of the Dnieper.

Oct. 20: The Germans have been cleared from the Voltumo area, in Italy.

In a general advance yesterday, the Allies occupied 23 towns and villages.

Oct. 21: Swift and deep penetration by the Russian armies south of their Kre menchug bridgehead threatens the whole of the German armies in the Dnieper Bend with a crisis graver than any they have faced since Stalingrad.

Oct. 21; In a new Allied air blow at Rabaul, the Japanese lost 60 planes, a destroyer, a gun-boat and a 6,000 ton freighter. A corvette was left in flames and another 6,000 ton freighter was sinking.

Oct. 23; The Japanese isolated behind Finschhafen (New Guinea) have made a desperate bid to reach the sea, but have been driven back to the hills around Satelberg.

Oct. 25: The whole German position in the Dnieper Bend is crumbling, as the Red Army makes a new sidewise drive from the wedge they have already driven in the German lines west of the river.

Oct. 26: The Allies, in five attacks on the Wewak area, destroyed 23 Japanese aircraft, and sank two 1,000-ton ships, and damaged a third.

Oct. 26: 500 Italian-based Allied air craft yesterday raided targets in South ern Austria.

Oct. 27: Russians are systematically bombing the German army retreating from Dnepropetrovsk, captured on the 25th.

Oct. 27: In two attacks on Rabaul dur ing the week-end. Allied aircraft des troyed 123 enemy planes.

Oct. 29: A member of the Official Sta tistics Bureau. Berlin, states that 1,200,086 Germans civilians were killed, missing or believed killed as a result of Allied air raids up to October 1, 1943.

Oct. 29: In Italv, the Eighth Army captured Torello, after a stiff fight.

Oct. 29; It is reported that Japanese are evacuating Choiseul Island and with drawing to Bougainville. Allied planes made another large-scale raid on Rabaul.

Enemy plane losses in the last three days were 269 destnfyed or damaged.

Oct. 30: The Germans now are in headlong flight south of the Dnieper Bend, where the Red Army is racing for

the Crimea, after its spectacular break through in the' Melitopol area.

Oct. 30: Shielded by rain squalls and smoke screens, American and New Zea land troops on Wednesday landed and occupied Mono Island, in the Treasury Group (35 miles south of Bougainville).

Nov. 1: American commandos were landed on Choiseul Island on Wednesday and have been joined by paratroops, who landed near Vozo. New Zealanders and Americans on Mono Island have driven the Japs into the northern part of the island.

Nov. 2: The German retreat south wards of the Dnieper Bend is described as the most complete rout of German troops since 1918.

Nov. 2: In a heavy daylight raid on Rabaul last Friday, Allied airmen des troyed 45 Japanese planes, and 18 were probably destroyed.

Nov. 3: American troops, with air and sea support, landed at Empress Augusta Bay, Western Bougainville, at dawn on Nov. 1. The troops encountered little opposition, taking the Japanese by sur prise.

Nov. 3: It is announced that, in Mos cow on October 30, the United Nations formally reached agreement on the fol lowing matters:— (1) Continuation of hostilities until all enemies have laid down their arms in unconditional surrender. (2) United action after the war for the organisation and maintenance of peace and security, with the earliest pos sible formation of an international orga nisation to ensure this. (3) Joint action in all matters relating to the surrender and disarmament of the common enemy. (4) All measures necessary to provide against any violation of the terms imposed on the enemy. (5) An undertaking not to use military forces inside any State except for the purposes outlined in the agreements. (6) Regulation of armaments after the war to be achieved by international conference. (7) Immediate establishment in Lon don of a European Advisory Commission to study European questions as they arise during the war and make joint recommendations for their settlement. (8) Return for judgment and sentence to the countries in which crimes were committed of all war criminals and the trial by the covenanting Powers of the principal criminals. (9) Destruction in Italy of all remnants of Fascism and the restoration of Demo cracy to the Italian people. (10) Liberation of Austria from the German yoke, with account taken in the final settlement of Austria’s own contri bution to that liberation and her respon sibility for joining the war by the side of Germany.

Nov: 4: The Australian Commander, General Sir Thomas Blarney, says the Japanese are reinforcing the South west Pacific and, in his opinion, will put up a stiff fight for the remainder of New Guinea.

Nov. 4: The Crimea is now isolated by the Russian advance. Further north, the Germans are pouring heavy reinforce ments into the Krivoi Rog section—their intention apparently being to stabilise a front south-west from that town to the Dnieper, near Boroslav, and hence to Kherson. The Red Army has reached the Lower Dnieper, along a 50-miles front, at Kakhovka.

Nov. 5: Fifteen enemy ships were sunk and 11 damaged in an Allied air raid on Rabaul; 85 Japanese planes were

destroyed and 23 probably destroyed.

Tnese enemy forces apparently were intended for a counter-attack against the newly-landed Americans on Bougain ville.

Nov. 5: A 25-miles advance by Russian Cossacks south of the Dnieper has brought them within 12 miles of Kher son, near the mouth of the Dnieper.

Nov. 6: A Japanese cruiser and two destroyers were sunk and two other destroyers hit in a naval engagement off Bougainville. The rest of the Japanese turned and fled.

Nov. 6: Fifth Army units are now 66 miles from Rome. The campaign in Italy is going slowly, however, owing to very bad weather, and the strong German positions in the mountains, athwart the peninsula.

Nov. 6: The Russians have taken Kiev, third city of Russia, which has been in German hands for about two years. The Nazi leaders are speaking openly of the catastrophe threatening the whole of the German armies in the south of Russia..

Nov. 7: Japanese naval reinforcements in Rabaul harbour suffered a further blow on Friday (sth) when 100 carrier based Allied aircraft, and about the same number of land-based aircraft, attacked them. A Japanese cruiser was sunk, and ten other warships hit, and 24 enemy planes shot down, and 20 probably destroyed.

Nov. 9: Japanese losses in the South Pacific area at the hands of Allied bombers and fighters on November 7 and 8 were: 63 aircraft destroyed; 16 dam aged or probably destroyed; 9 barges, 5 cargo vessels and a corvette sunk; 25 barges damages; 2 destroyers damaged by possible hits or near-misses.

Nov. 10: In a speech in London yester day, Mr. Churchill set 1944 as the climax of the war in Europe; but he sees, before the end, great sacrifice of British and American lives.

Nov. 11: The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation delegates (representing 44 nations) reached an agreement in Wash ington. President Roosevelt, broadcast ing, said: “We mean business in the poli tical and humanitarian sense, as surely as in the military sense.”

Nov. 11: General Giraud has resigned from the French National Committee of Liberation and, in future, will be solely Commander-in-Chief of the French Army. The reconstituted Committee has General de Gaulle as president. It is reported that General de Gaulle’s com plete nolitical victory is viewed with con cern in London and Washington.

Nov. 15: The Russians have captured the city of Jitomir and so have cut the vital Leningrad-Odessa railway. It is believed in London that this is a major calamity for the Germans.

Nov. 15; The Japanese have lost another cruiser, two destroyers and 88 planes in an Allied raid on Rabaul.

Reports have come to hand of the splendid conduct of Sergeant Mara Natapu, of Rurutu. French Oceania, when the bomber in which he was flying came down at sea. Sergeant Natapu, who is well known as a pearl-shell diver, in the Austral Islands, dived and rescued his pilot and also recovered the body of the observer. He then embarked in the plane’s rubber dinghy. At present he is in Britain, recovering from wounds, and is reported to be well. —From Tahiti s official newspaper.