Tribune: Daihon-ei confirms the trapping of British forces in the Buthidaung area, but the communiqué is conspicuous for its restraint and lack of details. The next article is titled, "Climax of Campaign" — so much for the objectives of Chittagong and Delhi.

"Primco authorized to buy up merchants' stock of clothing," because "only very few legal owners of cloth ration tickets ... have benefited from cloth rations." We've been telling them that for months, and now they're locking the barn after the horses have bolted. So Primco, the biggest crook, will distribute cloth "to honest citizens only."

In three encounters over Rabaul, the Japanese claim downing 117 planes for the loss of only five planes. The real news: The Japanese have already evacuated Taung Bazar! Wake Island bombed; ditto the remaining Japanese positions in the Marshalls. The Aussies have joined up with the Americans at Saidor in New Guinea. The 14,000 Japanese in the Huon Peninsula are mostly dead from starvation and exhaustion, and the road is now clear for a landing north of Madang.