The Press MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1943. Pacific Offensive

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24093, 1 November 1943, Page 4

The Press MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1943. Pacific Offensive

Between two and three weeks ago Rabaul was attacked in a raid of such weight and concentration as clearly introduced a new phase of the offensive. Nearly 200 Japanese aeroplanes were destroyed or damaged, at slight cost; but the precise figures are less significant than the general statement of the official communique, which claimed that control of the air in this theatre had been established, threatening Japan’s “whole perimeter of ds- “ fence.” This striking claim, which may be assumed to refer to the island chain from Timor to the Solomons, of course did not rest solely on the success of October 12. It is sustained by the blows at Wewak in particular and in general by the use of air power in preparing and prosecuting the Lae-Salamaua-Finschhafen operations and those in the Solomons. It has, moreover, been tested by events since. Rabaul has been hammered again and again, with consistently _ good results and consistently low losses. Other targets have not been spared meanwhile. Everything therefore points to the conclusion that the last phase of the converging offensive on Rabaul has begun. The pincers in New Guinea and the Solomons .have gripped and tightened. The Allied naval force, chiefly United States, is strong enough to challenge Japan’s massed strength at sea. General Mac Arthur, finally, wields the air superiority which he has always described as fundamental in allarms, large-scale offensive action in the Pacific. Against Rabaul, it appears, he is about to launch the first of those “ massive blows at “ key strategic objectives,” which he has designed, and in the conditions which he himself laid down.

Two questions, however, may be asked. The recent closed session of Congress is reported to have been told that Japan is still building aeroplanes faster than they are being destroyed. One question, therefore, is whether this fact does not modify or endanger General MacArthur’s claim to have mastered the air in the Solomons theatre. But even if the comparison between Japan’s building and loss rates extends into the recent period of greatly increased losses, it' should be remembered that it could well be true and yet consistent with Japan’s standing in a ruinously disadvantageous position. A combatant does not maintain front-line strength by building new machines as fast as front-line machines are shot out of the air, or by building them twice as fast. Front-line strength cannot safely, for long, be more than a fifth of total strength; replacement rate, for this reason, must far exceed loss rate, or reserves will be steadily eaten up. Again, Japan may be building considerably faster than she is losing and yet be. falling into hopeless inferiority, because the Allied building rate—and front-linfe building-up rate—is a high multiple of the wastage rate. The second question concerns naval strategy. There are indications that United States naval strategy is reaching out to a measure of independence. The Ellice and Wake Island raids would not, of themselves, necessarily suggest it. Colonel Knox’s “seek and “ destroy ” slogan for the American Navy, would not, of itself, necessarily suggest it. A policy of trying to bring the Japanese battle fleet to action might be closely linked with MacArthur’s total strategy and its aim in the Philippines. But it seems possible that the true significance of these evidences is to be found by relating them to the Nlmitz-Halsey conference, at which large Central Pacific air and sea operations are understood to have been discussed, and to Admiral Nimitz’s statement at Honolulu, reported on Friday. This projected “ an intensified naval “offensive across the Pacific,” in the course <of which Army and marine amphibious units would be’ landed on enemy-held Islands, “which the Pacific Fleet needs to “extend its Control into Japanese “home waters.” .The report describes this as “ a new drive westward,” and the context sustains the description, whether the words were Admiral Nimitz’s or not. It remains to be seen whether total Allied strength is yet sufficient to launch this gigantic enterprise without stinting MacArthur’s or bringing it to a halt far short of Mindanao. His much-discussed statement on Pacific strategy, towards the end of September, was widely interpreted as a criticism of developments foreshadowed in the creation of the South-east Asia Command and Lord Louis Mountbatten’s appointment to it. It is a great deal more likely that he had in mind the risks of an independent naval strategy in the Central Pacific.