On the Way

The precious time won from the Jap in the victory of the Coral Sea was running out. Soon he would strike again, and this time he might plow through to New Caledonia or to Australia's sparsely held coasts.

In the U.S., wishful thinking after the battle had set spirits soaring, sent many a U.S. citizen flying to the double-wrong conclusion that the war was being won in the south Pacific as well as in Europe. Australians knew better. The Jap had been thwarted before but he always came back for more, because he always had more reserves close by than the United Nations in the south Pacific could lay their hands on. So it was after the Battle of Macassar Strait (TIME, Feb. 2). And so it was after the Battle of Bali, when he took another shellacking. He always got where he was headed.

Now the Jap wanted Australia, either under his foot or under the shadow of his forces operating from the islands to the east. And Australia's defenses were not half so strong as Douglas MacArthur would have liked. But of air strength MacArthur had enough to keep the Jap worried and off balance. He used it, while among the islands to the northeast the U.S. craft prowled, and watched their chance.

While Navy subs bagged a 7,100-ton cruiser and two Jap cargo vessels, MacArthur's airmen reached far & wide for the Jap's shipping and air installations. The dingdong raiding across the wilds of New Guinea went on daily, with the Jap pounding at the U.S. airdromes at Port Moresby while American and Australian crews smashed the Jap's docks, sheds and ships at Salamaua and Lae.

Bombers from Australian bases raided Timor, to the northwest, bunged up a flying field, fought their way home untouched. U.S. four-motored bombers, piloted by Australians, flew 600 miles to the ex-Dutch naval base at Amboina, blasted shipping, knocked down three Zeros and came home one ship short.

For bomber crews it was a wild & woolly life. In one raid a U.S. gunner knocked down a Zero so near his plane that the flaming plane looped out of control around the bomber and spun into the ground. After the fight there was more trouble--no doing of the Jap. The bomb doors would not close. Two U.S. enlisted men were lowered on ropes under the speeding plane. Without parachutes for comfort, they shook the doors loose, were hauled back with the certainty of heroes' medals.

In these and many another desperate raid the Jap was taking a good pounding. But it was not enough to stop him. His ships still went into his ports, his supplies piled up on the docks that called for hundreds more Allied bombers for their destruction. He was on the way again. There was no mistaking that.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.