Where Were They?

At Hollandia there were crated Japanese airplane engines, heavy guns, trucks, tractors, a radio station, ammunition dumps, medical supplies, food -- including beer, wine, French champagne, British marmalade. But there were few, if any, Japs. The strong American forces which had landed at Tanahamera and Humboldt Bays pushed rapidly inland this week, spearheaded by road-building bulldozers.

They swarmed across Lake Sentani in amphibious landing craft, quickly captured the three Hollandia airfields. Except for scattered sniping, the only Jap opposition was an ineffectual 14-plane torpedo attack on a U.S. destroyer in Hollandia Bay and a single plane bombing of the Jap supply dump, which exploded like a string of firecrackers down two miles of beach.

Once before -- at Lae -- General MacArthur had landed in force at a supposed Jap stronghold, had found few Japs. They had been pulled off balance by an assault on Salamaua farther down the coast, had reinforced Salamaua at the expense of Lae. It appeared last week that something of the same sort had happened at Hollandia.

Air pressure had been brought heavily to bear on the intermediate base of Wewak, apparently causing the Japs to concentrate there, in anticipation of invasion. Aitape and Hollandia were left in the hands of service troops, most of whom quickly retreated to the jungle-robed hills. That the Japs had not pulled out of Dutch New Guinea was evident in the supplies captured at Humboldt Bay. Somewhere between Aitape-Hollandia and Madang (which was taken last week by Australian troops) are the remnants of the Japanese Eighteenth Army, reported to be elements of six divisions and one brigade (about 60,000 men). Reinforcement and supply are cut off. Like the Jap exiles on southern Bougainville, they have little choice but to live sparsely in the jungle, or to seek death in scattered attacks against the overwhelmingly strong American beachhead.

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