The South-west Pacific

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23739, 10 September 1942, Page 4

The South-west Pacific

Mr Kooseveits warning against over-estimating the importance of the successes of the American forces in the Solomon Islands, made in his broadcast on Monday, has been underlined by the last two days! news of operations in the south-west Pacific. This news suggests that in spite of the successful landings in the Solomon Islands, and of the Japanese failure at Milne Bay, the situation in the south-west Pacific generally is still unstable. In the Solomon Islands the Americans have achieved a considerable gain from their occupation of Guadalcanar, providing them with an airfield from which their aircraft have been active in defence against Japanese counter-attacks. But the latest messages, reporting Japanese landings, although apparently on a small scale, on several of the islands where American forces are now established, indicate that American control of the area is still far from complete. At Milne Bay the Japanese, finding strong land resistance where they expected little or none, had to retreat. Allied resistance, however, apparently has not extended to the sea approaches to Milne Bay, for Japanese warships have twice entered the bay in the last few days and shelled Allied shore positions. These reports about the Solomon Islands and Milne Bay both point to the same conclusion—that the naval forces available in the southwest Pacific, although sufficient for a concentrated action like the landing operations in the Solomon Islands, are still inadequate for such a dispersal of strength as must be necessary for effective patrol in these waters. Until naval strength has been built up to the point where air reconnaissance and air attack on enemy landing parties and raiding warships can be backed up by Allied naval action Japanese reinforcement of forces remaining in the occupied islands, and Japanese naval assistance for land operations is certain to continue. It was just this lack of Allied naval and air strength which made possible the original Japanese landings in the Buna-Gona area, which have developed into tne present serious

threat to Port Moresby from the operations at Kokoda. The latest messages report that the Japanese forces have driven back the Allied patrols to the main defence line in the heights of the Owen Stanley ranges. It is not clear whether the pass the Japanese have reached is on the approaches to the gap in the' ranges over which the track to Port Moresby goes, or leads to another route across the mountains, opening the way for an attack on the Allied flank. While these events give point to Mr Roosevelt’s warning, they also illustrate the flexibility of Japanese - strategy in face of changing conditions and reverses. More, they draw attention to warnings issued at the beginning of the Solomon Islands engagement, that the Allies, having taken the offensive in this area and recaptured important positions, could not hope to rest content with a static defence of them, or to limit their operations to these initial gains. The alternative to a continuing offensive in the south-west Pacific is not static defence, but slow and disastrous retreat.