In Brunei Bay

For seven days Allied planes and naval units sowed high explosives around Borneo, in the southern end of General MacArthur's theater. Then from Tokyo came a voluble description of action. An Allied convoy, including a battleship, cruisers, destroyers and 50 other small warships massed off Brunei Bay, began bombarding Labuan Island, guarding the bay's entrance. The landing which followed, said Tokyo, was made with "about a division of troops." From Canberra came confirmation that men of the Australian Ninth Division had gone ashore in British North Borneo. Brunei Bay offered the Allies a fine fleet anchorage.

Tokyo radio also chattered nervously about the other side of northern Borneo, and reported the area around the city of Sandakan receiving increasing Allied naval attention.

For months Allied bombers have been working over Borneo, where the Japanese sit hopelessly on some of the world's highest-grade oil deposits. On May 1 Australian troops landed on Tarakan Island, just off Borneo's northeast coast, where they are still fighting Japanese.

Borneo was ripe for MacArthur's attention, for on the Philippines the campaign had settled down to a hard, patient mop-up in the dreary mud of the rainy season. On Mindanao U.S. troops worked slowly toward Mount Apo, highest peak in the Islands, where retreating Japs melted back into the brushy, green slopes. North on Luzon opposition was lighter, and Sixth Army forces were able to poke a long, strong finger deep into the Cagayan Valley where some 20,000 of General Tomoi-juki Yamashita's troops were cornered. Explained one grinning, bowing Jap prisoner: "Yamashita no good."

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