In Blanche Bay

A bomber's moon on four successive nights guided aircraft of General Douglas MacArthur's command over the jungle-clothed mountains of New Guinea to Rabaul. On one raid a Jap cruiser was hit. On another a warship was driven aground. Two other warships and numerous cargo vessels also felt the sting of night raiders striking at the best deep-water harbor in the New Guinea-New Britain area.

Since January 1942 the Japanese had held Rabaul on Blanche Bay, the flooded crater of an extinct volcano which gives deep water almost to the shore. In peacetime Rabaul's tiny wharf was used chiefly by island trading ships of two companies, W. R. Carpenter & Co. and Burns Philp & Co. Now the harbor is a great Japanese naval and troop-transport center. From it, short and efficient supply lines radiate to forward bases above both shoulders of Australia--a score of spots such as Kupang on Timor and Gizo in the Solomons. From those forward bases, which like Rabaul have come in for a dose of heavy bombing, the Japs would launch any fresh offensive or organize any firm defenses in the Southwest Pacific Area.

This week Douglas MacArthur's headquarters issued this communique: "Our air reconnaissance over the past weeks report a constant and growing reinforcement in all categories of enemy strength in the island perimeter enveloping the upper half of Australia. The enemy seems to be concentrating his main effort in preparation on this front."

General MacArthur's raiders, flying through sulfur fumes and corrosive dust from Rabaul's volcanoes, were bent on disorganizing this concentration. Their record: in Blanche Bay were the hulks of 58 ships; 26 others had been bombed out of service.

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