Pacific News-Review
June 15: Joachim von Ribbentrop, for merly Nazi Foreign Minister, has been captured by British field security police.
Be was found asleep in a lodging house it 8.30 yesterday morning. He is the last )f the top-ranking Nazis to be accounted for.
June 18: The trial of 16 prominent Poles on charges of preparing diversion iry acts in the rear of the Red Army in Poland, is proceeding in Moscow. All except one pleaded wholly or partially guilty.
June 18: William Joyce (Lord Haw Baw) was charged at Bow Street Court, London, to-day on a charge of high trea son under a law enacted in 1351.
June 19: Through a spokesman, King Leopold of the Belgians, has declared that there is no question of his abdication.
This is almost certain to cause indus trial strife. Many Belgian coalmines lave already gone on strike as a result Df Leopold’s return, and the Belgian Government has resigned.
June 21: Twelve of the 16 Poles being :ried in Moscow have been found guilty Df subversive activity, and sentenced to imprisonment.
June 22: Members of the German General Staff are to be exiled for an in definite period in small communities where they cannot hatch further plots, rhis has been announced by Field- Vlarshal Montgomery.. SS troops now in terned in a huge camp, are likely to be there for the next 20 years.
June 25: Fifty nations will sign the [JNCIO Charter for World Peace at San Francisco to-day.
July 5: Mr. John Curtin, Australia’s Prime Minister, died to-day at 4 a.m. He las been in ill-health since 1944; his return to the Australian Parliament in February, 1945, before a cure was com pleted, is directly responsible for his untimely end.
July 6; The British general elections— :he first for ten years—were held to-day.
Gwing to difficulties in counting service ;otes, the results will not be known for ibout three weeks.
July 9; John Amery, son of the British Secretary for India, has been charged vith treason under the same act as that under which William Joyce (Lord Hkw Haw) was charged in June. Amery’s :ase has been remanded until July 30.
July 11: The British, American and Russian leaders in Berlin have come to m agreement on the administration of :he city, which has been in a chaotic condition. It has been agreed that the German capital will be supplied from all the zones of occupation, and that coal md other fuel will probably be supplied Dn the same basis. During the period of deadlock, it appeared to be no one’s job to feed the Berliners, who were starving.
July 12: Mr. J. B. Chifley, formerly Australian Commonwealth Treasurer, has been elected Prime Minister of Australia, following the death last week of Mr. John Curtin.
July 15: President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin are on their way to a meeting in Potsdam. Talks will probably begin to morrow; it is expected that the Big Three will settle the framework of the post-w'ar world and establish the lines along which international organisations for peace will evolve.
War In The Pacific
June 13: The Japs, retreating before the advancing Australians in Borneo, have abandoned the Important Seria oil wells (Sarawak) after setting fire to them.
June 17: The Japanese have reported an Allied attack on Balikpapan, great
Dutch oil port on the east coast of Borneo. No confirmation has come from Allied sources, but Tokio says the port is being blasted by three battleships, an aircraft carrier and 16 destroyers.
June 17: Another 3,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Osaka, Japan’s second city. Later a further 3,000 tons were dropped on four small Japanese in dustrial towns. The commander of the US Superfortress fleets in the Marianas, described the last raid as the second phase of the air war on Japanese cities.
He said that Tokio, Osaka, Nagoya, Yoko hama, Kobe and Kawasake had been written off as Superfortress targets be cause they had been gutted.
June 19: Australian Ninth Division troops have made a second landing in Borneo at the small port of Weston on the eastern shore of Brunei Bay, and have pushed 14 miles inland.
June 21: The battle for Okinawa, which has lasted for 82 grim days, is over.
Japanese organised resistance has ceased.
June 22: Units of the AIF from Brunei Bay have landed at Lutong—equivalent to an advance of 80 miles.
June 26: Five hundred Superfortresses to-day dropped 3,000 tons of demolition bombs on ten Japanese aircraft and war plants.
June 28: Australian troops have com pleted the conquest of the Borneo oil fields, potentially the richest in the British Empire. Miri, which the Aus tralians entered on June 25, has had its 300 oil wells blazing for three weeks.
June 28: Japanese naval power has al most ceased to exist, Rear-Admiral Sher man, of the US Navy, has announced.
This is borne out by the daring sortie this week of US ships into the Sea of Okhotsk between the Kuriles and the mainland of Asia.
July 2: Yesterday, Australian Seventh Division troops stormed ashore at Balik papan, Dutch oil port in SE Borneo, and established a firm beach-head.
July 5: Australian Seventh Division troops have occupied Balikpapan, Dutch oil port, in South-east Borneo, after cap turing the local airport at Sepinggarg.
July 10: For the past 24 hours Ameri can Superfortresses and carrier-based
Lieut.-Colonel A. B. Ackland, formerly produce inspector in the Fiji Department of Agriculture, has been seconded to the Native Lands Trust Board as Land Agent.
He, with two Fijian assistants, Isikeli Cawa and Ilaitia Waqa, are at present in England taking a course in land management. They travelled to the United Kingdom, via America, and re cent photographs from the United States show the three of them in New York talking to Miss Nola Luxford, the New Zealander, who has done much good work entertaining visiting Dominions Service men.
Right Rev. W. H. Baddeley, Bishop of Melanesia, returned last month to the Solomon Islands from Sydney. During the past six months he had visited many places in Europe, the United States and Australia; and everywhere he was much in demand as a speaker on the Japanese invasion of the Solomons. The Bishop refused to leave his native charges when the Japs came early in 1942; and, for a considerable time until the Americans liberated the archipelago, he lived in the iungle, and dodged from island to island.
He saw England under the rocket-bombs, and America awaiting the German sur render; but he actually was flying over the Pacific, on his way to Australia, when VE-Day was announced.
Notes And Comment On
International Affairs
From June 15 To July 15
planes, estimated at over 2,000, have heaped ruin on the Japanese mainland in mass raids. The main object of these concentrated raids is said to be to destroy enemy air-power.
July 12: It is estimated that 27,000 Japanese planes have been shot down by US Navy, Marine and Army Air Forces since the war in the Pacific began, for a loss of 6,926 US planes. TJie Under-Sec retary for the US Navy says, however, that because of Japanese Kamikaze tac tics, the toughest fighting in the Pacific air war still lies ahead.
July 13: A rapid 10 mile ground ad vance and a simultaneous amphibious move up the coast of Borneo have brought the Australian Ninth Division troops to within 24 miles of the town of Jesselton, important port and mili tary centre, 113 miles from Brunei.
July 15: The mainland of Japan has been under fire from two large US Naval Task Forces for two days. These naval attacks are supported by more than 1,000 carrier-based planes which are sweep ing airfields in northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido Islands.
July 15: Troops of the Sixth Australian Division have won the battle for the Prince Alexander Ranges, overlooking Wewak in New Guinea.