STRATEGY IN PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23858, 29 January 1943, Page 5

STRATEGY IN PACIFIC

ATTENTION URGED IN AUSTRALIA FEARS OF “NEW MAJOR ENEMY DRIVE” (Special Australian Corresp., N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 10 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 28. “Co-ordinated aggressiveness will be henceforth the Allied order of battle," says the military correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald," commenting on the Casablanca conference, "In the scheme of global strategy formulated at the Casablanca conference priority must be given to the European theatre. But the war with Japan can no longer be relegated to a holding operation. “The promise of maximum aid to China presupposes the reopening of the Burma link as a prelude to blows at the heart of the Japanese enemy. In the Pacific emphasis must be upon naval and aerial activities aimed at the severance of Japan’s long lines of communication and at closing in upon the Japanese mainland. “Keenly alive to the dangers of allowing Japan to consolidate and develop her Pacific and Asiatic co-pros-perity spheres, Australia will watch eagerly for concrete evidence that this theatre has not been overlooked in the new strategy of global war.” The "Sydney Morning Herald,” in a leading article applauding “this most momentous conference,” says that in the Pacific “the partial diversion of Allied naval and air strength now, within the framework of an agreed global strategy, might save great loss and bloodshed later on.” That the Japanese have enormously strengthened their south-west Pacific defensive arc, running through an unbroken chain of more than 2000 miles of island bases from Celebes to the Solomons, is an inescapable deduction from General MacArthur’s communiques of the last few weeks. The thickening line of enemy airfields and naval bases under • our continual air attack tell their own plain story of Japanese development of a great fortified ring round the conquered territories. Warnings by Mr Curtin Australian war observers, however, are far from being assured that these Japanese efforts have a purely defensive purpose, and that they are designed primarily to permit the unhindered exploitation of the resources of the Netherlands East Indies and Malaya. The Prime Minister (Mr J. Curtin) reiterated Australia’s fears when he told the assembled Federal Parliament: “There is no portent suggesting that the enemy has had a rebuff sufficient to deter him from the task he has set himself.” At a subsequent press conference Mr Curtin elaborated this statement. “In past offensive moves the Japanese failed to gauge the strength of Allied resistance," he said, “but with a stroke of luck they might have a major concentration stronger than the resistance we could offer. Australia fears that the present Japanese shipping and aeroplane concentrations are just so offensively designed. While such fears of a new major enemy drive may be exaggerated, it is clear that Australia’s healthy realism towards the Japanese menace has nothing in common with the earlier complacency which has proved so expensive to the Allies. “It is absolutely certain, too, that enemy efforts round the periphery .of their entire south Pacific and Indian Ocean domains, are on a greater scale than ever before. The heavily manned and well stocked Japanese bases could be quickly converted from defensive to offensive purposes. “Australia recognises that an Allied island-hopping offensive against Japan is mprely a temporary palliative, not a final solution of Pacific strategy; but her war observers believe that additional air strength, in the Pacific could weaken Japan’s hitting power before she could execute any existing threat, i Were SQ bombers to attack Rahaul and the other enemy basep mentioned in the daily communiques, where. 10 .attack to-day, Japan’s attirliiohal losses would almost certainly be such that she could no longer think in terms of expanding her conquests. Finally, and irrevocably, she would be forced on to that defensive which is an essential preliminary to her inevitable defeat. “It is widely hoped in Australia that a minor outcome of the Casablanca conference may be the provision of just such additional air ’strength.” CASUALTIES IN PAPUA TWO JAPANESE FOR ONE ALLIED (Rec. 10130 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 28. Two Japanese soldiers were lost for every Allied SJoldier who fell in the Papuan campaign. The Allied figures of losses take into account not merely men killed and wounded, but also those withdrawn from battle because of sickness. In the air our losses, compared with those of the Japanese, were even lower than those on land. At sea our casualties were negligible. This satisfactory balance-sheet of the Papuan campaign is part of to-day’s communique from General MacArthur’s headquarters. No actual figures are given. The official statement declares; “These figures reverse the usual results of a ground offensive campaign, especially against prepared positions defended to the last, when the losses of the attacker are usually several times those of the defender. Two factors contributed to this result: first, there was no necessity to hurry our attack because the time element in this case was of little importance; and, second, for this reason no attempt was made to rush the enemy positions by mass and unprepared assault. The utmost care was taken with the conservation of our forces, with the result that probably no campaign in history against such a thoroughly prepared and trained army has produced such complete and decisive results with a lower expenditure of life and resources.” , The total of Japanese killed counted in the Sanananda area of Papua has reached 2952, with an estimate of 1000 more dead from tropical diseases. These figures do not include those buried by the Japanese, nor enemy losses in other sections of the BunaGona beach-head. The total number of prisoners taken in the Sanananda area, including Korean coolies, was 120. One of the last Japanese casualties at Sanananda was a colonel who tried to shoot an Australian artillery brigadier some days after the fighting had ceased. A tommy-gunner who was accompanying the brigadier saw a Japanese drawing his automatic. A burst from the tommy-gun killed the Japanese, who proved to be one of the highest ranking officers encountered in the area, SUGGESTED ALLIED INTENTION “HOLDING WAR” WITH JAPAN (Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, Jan. 28. The Washington correspondent of the New York “Herald-Tribune” says that the minor reference to China in the communique issued at Casablanca is not interpreted as meaning that China or the south-west Pacific will play second fiddle, but apparently blows against Germany will come first, while a holding action is fought against Japan.