President Speaks

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1942, Page 6

President Speaks

"TAKING HEAVY TOLL OF ENEMY EVERY DAY"

ALLIES' STRENGTH

Roosevelt Says U.S.A. Will Wage Offensive War I'rv.vri prnM As*.'- m ■■•]. — •:■>;>■ r.«-lit. Rec. 2 p.m WASHINGTON, Feb. 23. President Roosevelt, in a broadcast .-peech to-day, showed a spirit of confidence, but again emphasised that the war will not end soon. He said that difficult paths lie ahead and declared that the Allies were daily increasing their strength. "We and not our enemies will have the offensive and we will win the final battles and make the final peace." said Mr. Roosevelt. "The present great struggle has taught us increasingly that freedom, personal security and property anywhere in the world depend upon security, rights and obligations of liberty and justice everywhere in the world. "This new kind of war is different from all other wars not only in the methods and weapons, but in geography. It is warfare in terms of every continent, every island, every sea and every air lane in the world. The broad oceans, which have been heralded in the past as our protection against attack, have become endless battlefields, on which we are being constantly challenged by our enemies.

Fight Over V;ist Distance*

"We fight at these vast distances because that is where our enemies are. Until our flow of supplies gives us clear superiority we must keep on striking our enemies wherever and whenever we can meet them. Actually, though, we are taking a heavy toll of the enemy every day that goes by.

"The object of the Nazis and Japanese is to separate the United States, Britain, China and Russia. and to isolate them one from another so that each may be surrounded and cut off from supplies and reinforcements.

"There are those who still think in terms of sailing ships. They advise us to pull our warships and planes into our home waters and to concentrate on last ditch defence. Look at your map of the British Isles, Australia, New Zealand, the East Indies and India and the continent of Africa, with their resources and raw materials and peoples determined to resist Axis domination. If these great reservoirs were cut off we could no longer send aid.

"Magnificent" China

"It is essential that we help China In her magnificent defence and in her inevitable counter-offensive, for that is one important element in the ultimate defeat of Japan.

"Secondly. If we lost communication with the south-west Pacific all that area, including Australia and New Zealand, would fall under Japanese domination. Japan could then release great numbers of ships and men to launch attacks on a large scale against the coasts of the Western Hemisphere and at the same time extend her conquests to India, to Africa and to the Near East.

"If we stopped sending munitions to the British and Russians in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf areas and the Red Sea we would help the Nazis to overrun Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Persia, Egypt, the Suez Canal and the whole of the coasts of North and West Africa, putting Germany Into easy striking distance of South America, 1500 miles away. "If by such a fatuous policy we ceased to neglect the North Atlantic supply line to Britain and Russia, we would help to cripple the splendid counter-offensive by Russia and we would deprive Britain of essential foodstuffs and munitions. Those Americans who believed that we could live under the delusion of isolationism wanted the American eagle to imitate the practice of the ostrich. Now those same people want our national bird to be turned into a turtle, but we prefer to retain the eagle as it is flying high and striking hard. "We Reject Turtle Policy ,, "I know I speak for the mass of the American people when I say that we reject the turtle policy and will continue increasingly carrying the war to the enemy in distant lands and waters as far as possible from our home grounds. "The maintenance of the vital lines of communication in the North and South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Is a very tough job which requires tremendous daring, tremendous resourcefulness and above all tremendous production of planes, tanks, guns and ships to carry them. I speak again for the American people when I say that we can and will do that job.

"Heavy bombers can fly to the south-west Pacific, but smaller planes cannot, and must be packed in crates and shipped, despite the length and difficulties of transportation. We have already a large number of bombers and pursuit planes manned by American pilots in daily contact with the enemy in the southwest Pacific and thousands of American troops are engaged in that area not only in the air but on the ground. Japanese at Advantage Mr. Roosevelt went on to say that In this battle the Japanese were obviously at an advantage, in that Japan was able to fly even her shortrange planes by the use of many stepping-stones and also by using bases in the Pacific islands, the China coast, Indo-China, Thailand and Malaya. The Japanese could set out from Japan and from China. "J ask you to look at the map again," said Mr. Roosevelt, "and particularly this portion lying west of the United States. Before this war we were surrounded by Japanese. On the west the Japanese were In a position to attack the coast of China and of Indo-China, which had been yielded to it. On the north you have the islands of Japan and the mandated islands which the Japanese had occupied exclusively and fortified in violation of their written word. "Of these islands hundreds appear as dots and others do not appear at all, but they cover a large diffusive area." continued Mr. Roosevelt. "Immediately this war started the Japanese forces moved down on tither side of the Philippines, there-

by completely encircling the Philippines. With that complete encirclement they secured control of the r.rea which prevented us from sending reinforcements of men and materials." Tribnte to Defenders President Roosevelt went on to pay a tribute to the gallant defenders of the- Philippines, under General Mac Arthur. and said that the resistance also being put up in China. Burma and the Netherlands East Indies was making Japan pay an increasingly heavy price for heV ambitions to control the whole of ihe Asiatic world. It had been said, he continued. that Japan's action in the Philippines was made possible by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. That was not so. Even if the attack had not been made the map showed that it would have been fruitless to send troops to the Philippines while those islands were under the control of the Japanese. He deplored the action of American- who. since Pearl Harbour, had whispered that there was now no American Fleet and that more than 1000 American planes had been destroyed. It had been slyly suggested that the Government had withheld information about casualties and that shiploads of the American dead were about to arrive in the harbour of New York to be put into a common grave.

Almost every Axis broadcast directly quoted Americans who, by speech and in the Press, made statements such as these.

"The consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbour, serious as they were, have been wildly exaggerated by Axis propagandists" and repeated I regret to say. by Americans in and out of public life. You and I have the utmost contempt for those who whispered off the record the fear that there is no longer any Pacific Fleet.

"Your Government rias unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst without flinching or losing heart. You must, in turn, have complete confidence in your Government keeping nothing from you except information that would help the enemy.

"To pass from the realm of rumour to the field of facts. 2340 men were killed in Pearl Harbour on December 7. The wounded numbered 946. Of all combatant ships based in Pearl Harbour, battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines, only three were permanently put out of commission. Many ships of the Pacific Fleet were not even there."

Mr. Roosevelt said that some of the ships were slightly hit and others were damaged, but these had either rejoined the fleet or were undergoing repairs, and they would be better fighting machines than ever before.

The statement that the United States had lost 1000 planes was referred to by the President as other instances of enemy propaganda. The Japanese did not know how many planes they had destroyed, and he was not going to inform them. All he would say was that the United States had destroyed more Japanese planes than the Japanese had destroyed American planes.

Mr. Roosevelt said that to win the war production must be uninterrupted. That was required to enable the Allies to have control of the sea and control of the air. It was not merely a slight supremacy that was required, but an overwhelming supremacy.

"We will not stop work for a single day," continued Mr. Roosevelt. "We will keep on working and if there are disputes they will be settled by arbitration or other means, but work will go on."

Special privileges would not be granted to one group as against another and the people would have to modify their lives in the interests of the nation if it was necessary, otherwise the enemy would destroy them.

Axis propaganda was endeavouring to destroy the nation's determination and its morale, the President said. It was also aimed at destroying their confidence in their Allies

"Never before had America so little time to do so much as to-day," the President concluded.