FUTURE IN THE PACIFIC

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 85, 10 April 1943, Page 4

FUTURE IN THE PACIFIC

NEW ZEALANDERS will naturally contrast Mr. Curtm's latest statement about the Pacific war with the statement made earlier in the week by Mr. Nash on his return 'from Washington. Mr. Nash said that the conception of a "holding war" in the Pacific was not only wrong, but "recognised as being wrong," and he hinted that massive offensive strokes are being prepared. If Mr. Curtin's statement can be taken at its face value, he has not heard of them, or else he thinks they will be inadequate. Lamenting that the Pacific has become "the front of lost opportunities," he says that as "others have decreed that Germany must be beaten first" the task now is to ensure that it does not become "the front where the United Nations.lost the war." This amounts to saying that really dangerous offensive action in the Pacific is iikely to come from the Japanese rather than from the Allies. This view cannot be reconciled with the promise of President Roosevelt that this year the Allies in the Pacific will turn from defence to offence, with the supremely confident prophecy of Admiral Halsey, or with Mr. Nash's statement this week. All cannot be right. However it conies about that such an acute divergence of views apparently exists, it is right to take note of the fact that as the Australian leader Mr. Curtin is bound to be more acutely aware than the others of the proximity to his country of the armed forces of the enemy A year ago, when he appealed urgently to Washington and London for help, it was Australia towards which the enemy was rapidly advancing. It was Australian territory on which some of the most bitter and arduous fighting of the war later occurred. It is Australian (and contiguous Dutch) territory on which the Japanese to-day are building an arc of air bases. And if it should prove that Mr. Curtin's present forebodings are justified it is Australia, in all probability, that will have to bear the brunt cf a renewed Japanese attack. These circumstances are sufficient to account for the much greater anxiety over the Pacific war's prospect that is apparent in the actions of the Australian Government and the utterances of its leader. If he is wrong, and the other Allied leaders are right, he and they will be glad; if they are wrong, their countries will be less affected, in the short run, than his. Nevertheless it is a pity that in his latest statement Mr. Curtin made a reference to "lost opportunities" which is far too comprehensive. It does less than justice to the action of the United States Navy and Marine Corps in seizing the "opportunity" in the Solomons, or to the rapid and far-reaching spread of United States forces into the south and south-west Pacific, including Australia. Whether more could have been done must be a matter of opinion, but to what was done we in Australia and New Zealand largely owe our present security. Australia's request, which Dr. Evatt has again gone to Washington to advocate, is believed to be primarily for more combat and transport aircraft. The Japanese, making full use of their time, are making new airstrips and bases and aerodromes, laying supply dumps and distributing men and materials throughout the arc from the Celebes to New Georgia. Their bases are said to number not much under forty, and many of them have two or three aerodromes. This development, in the Australians' view, cannot be left to continue. They contend that a really powerful Allied air force could take such a toll of Japanese ships and aircraft that the new bases would become the source of serious loss through attrition. The unresolved question is whether such a powerful air force could be built up without impairing the strategy of "Beat Hitler First."