A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 138, 7 March 1942, Page 6

A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

MacArthur’s Message MORE THAN SURFACE MEANING „ “If you can hold out 30 days will send reinforcements.” Such is the message General MacArthur, leader of the valiant band of defenders of the Batau Peniusula, is reported to have sent to the United States War Department when he heard of the shelling by’ a Japanese of au oil installation ou the Californian coast, a little north of Los Angeles. On the face of it this satired or maybe jocular message is just one more testimony of the unquenchable spirit of the United States general, whose name is surely destined to be remembered and honoured for all time in the annals of the United States. It may be, however, that there is more to the message than spirited humour. There seems little doubt that the Californian shelling, as well as those carried out by Nazi submarines on the Atlantic coasts of the Americas, have been carried out more for psychological reasons than for any damage .they may have inflicted on the Allied war effort. Popular Reaction To Attacks An immediate-result of the shellings has been a display of alarm from a timid section of the public evidenced in appeals to - the State and War Departments of Washington for the allotment of warships and troops, to defend the various communities on the Atlantic aud Pacific seaboards. There, has also been revival of a demand by certain isolationist elements of the American public that the naval and land forces, with their respective air corps, should, be retained on the continent for home defence. The recent declaration by the United States Army Chief of Staff, General Marshall, that some pleas for local defence must be ignored so that the enemy can be sought out and attacked, leaves little room for doubt of the official interpretation of the purpose of the shelling raids, and that the Administration is not going to be led into doing exactly what the enemy desired. A simultaneous statement by the Navy Department was of the same import. Axis Propaganda The radio stations of Berlin, Rome and Tokio have not been backward in exploiting to the uttermost the propaganda value of the attacks. After each subtle queries as to what the armed forces of the United States are doing have been worked into the news bulletins and news commentaries. The whole pattern of the attacks shows that their design is to try and bring about a frame of mind which demands defence rather than attack as a policy and which may foster a demand that munitions and armaments be retained on the American continent rather than sent to aid Russia and other Allies. It is the growing flood of United States production that the Axis fears as nemesis, and every means is being exploited that may whittle it away. The Axis design is based upon the innate selfishness, found in some members of every community, which tends to panic at every threat of danger, and the design is not directed to the United States alone. It has been used and continues to be used against every country. which has the misfortune to come within the orbit of military threat. Happily, however, its very success in its earlier applications has awakened to its dangers the majority of people in nations still free, and it gains far less response as a consequence. Example Of France

As an instance of the danger to any country of the growth of such defeatist spirit among its people one has only to cite the ease.of France iu 1940. One of the strongest and, perhaps, the most potent factors in the military debacle was the frame of mind of many who felt it better to give in than have the country laid waste. They preached the futility of resistance and advanced the suggestion that the less resistance the aggressor encountered the less stringent would be his rule of the occupied country. History has already shown the fallacy of this idea. Nothing could have been more ruthless than the treatment of the unhappy French people, and the plundering and exploitation of the occupied territory could not have been more complete. The policy of defeatism received its own answer, and France's fate should be ample warning to any who would accept the onflow of Axis occupation as a distatsteful evil to be accepted and borne with resignation in the hope that the goodwill of the conquerors will lessen the harshness of their demands. Tokio Propaganda

There is evidence that the Japanese are determined to leave no propaganda, stone unturned in their effort to undermine Allied resistance in the South Pacific. There have already been broadcast hints to Australia and New Zealand that their case is hopeless and that they had far better co-operate than oppose the flow of Japanese conquest. Japan knows that every point of Allied resistance to which she has to demote time in reducing lessens her prospects of consolidating her gains before the overwhelming power of United Nations’ production comes into play against her. Every outpost of Allied opposition reduced strengthens her position and makes harder the task tlie Allies wi.l ultimately face. Japan fights against time; tlie Allies fight for time. A communique from 'Washington reports the great success achieved by »i naval force in fighting off a determined attack by Japanese bombers off the Gilbert Islands. This action was reported by the Japanese as an outstanding success for their naval bombers. claimed that the United States aircraftcarrier had been left iu flames and probably sunk and direct lilts scored on an attending cruiser ami a destroyer. The extravagance of the claim is beside the point; what really mattered was the open suggestion following the announcement that such actions showed the invincibility of Japanese arms. Iu other words, outright lies were disseminated to gain the propaganda end, when the actual facts carried strong evidence against the state of mind they wished to produce.