AMERICAN AID

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 87, 14 April 1942, Page 5

AMERICAN AID

BIG FLOW TO AUSTRALIA

MANY PLANES ARRIVE

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Eec. 9 a.m.). BRISBANE, April 13. America's war effort in Australia already is most impressive, declared the American correspondent, Mr. H. R. Knickerbocker, who has just completed a tour of important military areas on this continent. "This is the first time that anyone who witnessed the fall of Java has fe!t the right to be optimistic," adderf Mr. Knickerbocker. "Indeed, it is now possible to say with complete conviction that, we are prepared to defend Australia with a greater force than we have ever [ mustered since the American Expeditionary Force went to France. "I refer mainly to the flow of war materials, especially aeroplanes, which have already entered Australia and been disposed of around Australia in I such dimensions that they suggest we intend, at all costs, to hold this continent against the Japanese." CONTINENT AT WORK. Mr. Knickerbocker explained that in 7000 or 8000 miles of travel he saw, in a gigantic panorama, the picture of a continent feverishly at work preparing to defend itself against a greater peril than any of its inhabitants ever dreamed could visit it and that, for an American, it was a a matter of keen pride to note that throughout the length and breadth of the continent every nook and cranny had its American contingent of fighting forces.

Speaking at a meeting of the Aus-tralia-American Co-operation Movement in Sydney, the Minister of Supply, Mr. J. A. Beasley, paid eloquent tribute to the aid given by America to Australia, and said the help which had come forward in the past few weeks would enable the Allied forces throughout the Commonwealth to deal with the enemy in such a way as he had never before experienced.

Mr. Beasley expressed the opinion that the blows inflicted by American and Australian airmen in the New Guinea area had frustrated the immediate prospect of an enemy invasion.