Photograph. Australian soldiers marching next to blazing oil tank. Official Caption: "Rome. 6/1/45--Australians drive ahead on Tarakan--Troops of the Ninth Australian Imperial Forces Division, veterans of North Africa and New Guinea, push inland on oil-rich Tarakan Island, off the east cost of Borneo, on April 30, 1945. Before them blazes an oil tank, probably fired by the three days'’Allied bombardment from ship and plane which preceded this first Allied landing operation in the Netherlands Indies. The laborious Australian advance through a maze of road constructions, gun emplacements and electrically controlled mines was supported by planes of the Allied Far Eastern Air Force and the ship's guns of the U.S. Seventh Fleet and units of the Royal Australian Navy, which put the Australians ashore. Tarakan, one of the world's richest oil installations, for three years before the U.S. landings in the Philippines, fed the ships and planes of the Japanese.--War pool photo--Serviced by Rome OWI (A List out)++Approved by appropriate military authority. 6494." Tarakan Island, near Borneo. 30 April 1945