“NEXT THREAT FROM TIMOR"

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23818, 11 December 1942, Page 5

“NEXT THREAT FROM TIMOR"

WARNING GIVEN BY MR CURTIN

AUSTRALIA’S PART IN WAR STRATEGY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

)Rec. 11.30 p.m.) CANBERRA. Dec, 10, The Prime Minister of Australia (Mr J. Curtin) warned the House of Representatives that a long, grim struggle lay ahead. He declared: “The next Japanese threat will come from Timor, where there are signs of increasing hostile activity.” Enemy submarines were active in the Indian Ocean, he added, and Australia must be prepared to repulse all air and sea-borne attacks on the north-west coast.

'ln the first days of the Pacific war, said Mr Curtin, the decision by Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt that Germany must be defeated first had been reached before Singapore fell. Australia was then required to hold grimly as a base until a Pacific offensive was timed in global strategy. Denying that the Australian Government had felt rebuffed by over-rid-ing strategic decisions concerning the south-west Pacific. Mr Curtin declared: “Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt were unable fully to accept the views of the Australian Government on Pacific strategy and the provision of the forces and supplies sought. However, they gave certain assurances and practical support for which the Government is deeply grateful, and it felt bound to accept their conclusions in a spirit of united comradeship.” Reviewing the war on ihe various battlefronts, Mr Curtin said the success of the Allied operations in New Guinea lay in the preserving of absolute secrecy about the movement of the Allied forces in this area. The offensive here might have been taken much earlier had not two Australian brigades returning from the Middle East been diverted for the defence of Ceylon.

In Timor. Australian guerrilla forces had been doing good work. When the time came it would be important that Australia should be ready and able to eject the Japanese from their base in this region.

The results in the Solomons, declared Mr Curtin, were a good omen for the ultimate result of the south Pacific conflict.

Discussing the North African and Middle East battlefronts, Mr Curtin said that in the Bth Army’s latest drive the Australian 9th Division had lost 2740 men, of whom (52 0 were killed. Shipping was a grave problem for Australia as well as for the Japanese, he said, since the offensive stage of Allied strategy had created an extremely heavy demand for sea transport, In Australian waters enemy submarine action had been on a reduced scale because of the good work of the Australian and A.mcrican naval forces. Though the Australian Government had been able to secure additional shipping from overseas sources and the Commonwealth's own shipbuilding programme was assisting materially, the position was still acute.

JAPANESE VIEW OF WAR

‘CRITICAL STAGE ENTERED” NFW YORK. Dec. 9. “Japan’s .successes have given her impregnable strategic and economic positions in East Asia,” said the Japanese Foreign Minister (Mr Shigenori Togo) in an address to military leaders. Japan, he said, was prepared to light to the end against the British and Americans, who wanted obstinately to continue counter-attacks without great material resources. “We arc ready to annihilate them at any moment and at any point of the globe.” he continued. "I ask you all to prepare your minds for (he future. We have entered a critical stage in the war. The enemy is trying all kinds of tricks to get back at us. We must use all our training and skill to foil him.” “Japan has not abandoned her idea of attacking Australia and India, but her main aim in the Pacific in the second year of war is the development of the occupied territories,” declares the Berlin radio, quoting the Japanese military newspaper “Tniriku Shimpo.” The radio adds: “Operations and victories as tremendous as those achieved in the first year cannot be expected, though big sea battles may occur.”

The Tokyo radio says that the Italian and German naval attaches called on the Japanese Minister of the Navy (Admiral Shimada) and the Chief of the Naval General Staff (Admiral Nagano) and congratulated them on the Japanese Navy’s glorious results in the last year. They expressed the hope that the Navy would have additional victories. Admiral Shimada' replied that the Japanese successes were partly the result of Italian and German work in Europe. He hoped that even greater liaison would speed up the enemy’s destruction. Broadcasting for domestic consumption, the Japanese Army press chief, Captain Yahagi, complained that the Japanese lacked the fighting spirit, which he regretted very much. “America believes that she will win if the war is a long one,” he said. “A protracted war means a succession of great battles. The Solomons fighting is a battle to decide the fate of the war. The battleground is too far from Japan, so that the people do not fee] that we are fighting such a decisive battle.”. Mr Naokichi Horikawa, of (ho Japanese Propaganda Department, said that propaganda was the final key to victory. Japan was convinced that she would conquer in propaganda warfare. "Japanese propaganda endeavours to utilise the enemy’s psychology and we are using the weapon of broadcasting as effectively as the aeroplane or the battleship, 1 ’ he said.

RUMOURED

NEWS FROM NORTH AFRICA

BETTER SERVICE PROMISED

(Rcc. ].15 a.m.) LONDON, Doc. 10. "United States Army authorities in London have given an assurance that the flow of news from LieutenantGeneral Eisenhower’s command in North Africa will greatly improve within a few days," says the “Daily Mail.” American headquarters say: “We are aware of the deficiencies compared with the service sent under British control from Egypt. We are doing all that is possible to remedy the position speedily. Experts called in are now working to improve communications. There is every hope that war dispatches from Tunisia will soon be reaching England on the day of dispatch.”

Dispatches from correspondents in Tunisia have been taking from four days upwards to reach England. One received in London to-night has taken eight days. Dispatches travel by various typos of carrier to Algiers, thence by sea to Gibraltar, and thence by cable to England. Mr Edwin James, managing-direc-tor of the “New York Times,” said American newspapers receive dispatches from their correspondents with General Eisenhower three to seven days late. They are then generally of small value because their factual content is stale.

Radio In War.—Captain Oliver Lyttelton, Minister of Production, in answering a question in the House of Commons, said that in view of the increased importance of wireless communication and radio location during the war, it had been considered necessary to strengthen the existing organisation for controlling research, development, and production in that field. The Government has therefore set up a radio board as a co-ordinating body in regard to inter-sorvicc policy on research development and production.— Rugby, December 9.