Wewak

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24568, 17 May 1945, Page 4

Wewak

The extent of the Australian victory at Wewak, the. enemy’s last coastal stronghold in New Guinea, has yet to become fully apparent. The first reports speak of “ severe ” Japanese losses, and they add that the Japanese remnants fleeing inland are likely to lose “heavily” because a number of escape routes are in Australian hands. The New Guinea campaign, like those in New Britain and the Solomons, has long ceased to hold any strategic significance. It is almost a year since General MacArthur announced that, with the landing on Biak Island, the. New Guinea campaign had, for strategic purposes, come to an end. The Japanese in these areas have remained isolated, or virtually isolated, and impotent to hamper the Allied march towards the Asiatic mainland. They have, however, remained strong in numbers. One estimate, attributed to Washington by the naval correspondent of " The “ Times ”, gave it at 100,000 to 120,000. Another, from an Australian source, put it at 84,000 (23,000 in New Guinea, 45,000 in New Britain, and 16,000 in Bougainville). For five months at least, Australian forces have been fighting to clear these Islands. Their progress has not been spectacular. To March 17, the Japanese had lost, in all three campaigns, 3600 in killed and' prisoners. General Mac* Arthur’s communiques have since (to May 10) reported another 2600 eliminated. The enemy’s losses in the final stage of the Wewak battle have yet to be defined in terms more precise than “severe”; and when this measure of the victory is given it may be possible to determine whether the end of one of the “ mopping-up ” campaigns is in sight. But many more of the enemy than are isolated along the “Solo“mons axis” remain in other bypassed strongholds—in the pandates, for instance, and the Indies. The decision to resume the offensive against the “ Solomons axis ” was critically received in Australia, it was argued that Australian forces should be employed against the untouched centres of Japanese power, and that, in any case, it was better to wait for Japan’s defeat to bring about the evacuation of her garrisons. General Blarney has, however, contended that the garrisons must be eliminated “before they “ get a chance to colonise ”. The inference offered is that to overrun Japan in the homeland or in China and Manchuria as well will not be enough. If that is the inference to be drawn, the “mopping up” of New Guinea, New Britain, and Bpugainville emphasises how prudent are’ the recently repeated warnings that the road to complete victory will be long and hard.