Superior Force

Fourteen Jap ships sunk, plus 14 or 15 supply-laden barges. Two hundred and fifteen Jap planes destroyed in the air, more on the ground. Cost: 59 Allied aircraft, one warship. That was the score of two weeks' action on General MacArthur's new Pacific front.

Allied air superiority in the South Pacific had shifted from potential to actual. A few months ago the largest number of Allied planes ever to raid Rabaul was 37. In the last fortnight nights of as many as 150 bombers plus fighter escort have been over Munda and Bairoko regularly; on one day 250 sorties were made against Munda.

A few months ago the Jap's tactical air force along his southern perimeter was considered formidable. In the last fortnight there were days when two to seven were all the planes he could muster; his largest operational flight was 60.

Apparently determined to cling to New Georgia as long as he could, the Jap had resorted to sea strength as his air force weakened. He revived the "Tokyo Express." But the U.S. Navy's powerful guns had felt out the Jap ships in the darkness, sunk between 17 and 23, crippled more. Bombers, too, lashed at Jap shipping. Superior force, which had been brought to bear in Tunisia and Sicily, was winning in the Pacific as well.

Munda. The battle for Munda and its isolated supply depot at Bairoko Harbor braked down to a process of slow elimination. U.S. troops had come to grips with the enemy in his ultimate warrens, and he was not an enemy who surrendered. Sloughing through knee-deep mud, the Americans were within capturing distance of both airfield and harbor, were cracking open the bristling, fire-spitting concrete and earthwork mounds in which the Japs have taken final refuge.

Salamaua. Reinforced and receiving artillery and heavy air support, small squads of jungle fighters worked their ways around treacherous escarpments, through dense jungle, gouging the Japs out of their defensive positions before Salamaua. At week's end Allied troops were less than seven miles from Salamaua.

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