"SPLENDID VICTORY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 5

"SPLENDID VICTORY"

Gen. Mac Arthur's Message

(Rec. 10.30 a.m.) CANBERRA, June 8,

General Douglas Mac Arthur, Commander-in-Chief in the southwest Pacific, has sent the following message to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz: "The splendid victory at Midway Island has aroused the greatest enthusiasm throughout this area. The Prime Minister of Australia has asked me to join his felicitations to those of all ranks here. "My own pride and satisfaction are boundless. We will not fail." -> . . .. engaged; they disappeared beyond the radius of our immediate means of reconnaissance, but we have considerable numbers of submarines sprinkled about the Western Pacific which were able to give us a good deal of at least negative information. ACTION IMPERATIVE. "It was apparent after the Coral Sea action that the Japanese would have to go somewhere and do something. Among our various important outposts Dutch Harbour and Midway Island offered them the best chance of invasion with some hope of success. "At the same time, we were fully 'aware that the Japanese might renew the actions in the Coral Sea, even though they had recently "been stung \ there. "To this extent we were prepared for the assault on Midway Island, and we recognised that Alaska might also be attacked. "You know the general line of communications which we have to protect to Australia, but you probably do not realise the large forces that are needed to protect a line of that length. All these factors had to be evaluated. The decision to act had to be taken on the basis 01 a calculated risk. RANGE OF AIR RECONNAISSANCE. "Midway Island has been greatly strengthened since the Peari Harbour action. As the Japanese now know, the radius of our effective air scouting from that Island extends t a distance of at least 500 miles. "What they do not know, and what I do not propose to tell you, is the actual limit of that radius of aerial reconnaissance. "Certainly, if we had known exactly when, where, and in what force the r enemy intended to strike we might have been able to afford some diversion from our other vital areas.of protection, but as the reports will prove, I believe, we will have nothing to apologise for in the present action. "I cannot give details of our forces engaged or ready to be engaged. The Japanese probably do not exactly know them, but they have cause to .know plenty."