ATTACK AVOIDED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 137, 12 June 1942, Page 4

ATTACK AVOIDED

AUSTRALIA AND NEW^ ZEALAND

MEANING OF VICTORY

(By Teleu.rapli—Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. noon.) LONDON, June 11. Japan's defeat in the Midway Island battle may have,saved .Australia and New Zealand, says Lord Strabolgi, writing^ in the "Evening Standard."

"If the Japanese had won at Midway and then.made a successful assault against the Hawaiian Islands, the lines of communication

between the west coast of North America and Australia and New Zealand could have been severed," , he says. ."The Japanese High Command would then have been able to proceed at its leisure with the invasion of Australia and New Zealand^ \ "A line of communication has been established from the western, .ports of America and the Panama Canal, by way of Hawaii,, Samoa, and; Fiji to Australia and New Zealand. To have any hope of quick success in invading Australia and New Zealand—and it must be a quick success—the Japanese must, at, all costs; cut'this line of communication. They could do it by seizing Hawaii, but .first they must have Midway. "If they do not invade Australia it will presently be a base for a vast Allied counter-attack against' the Japanese positions "in * the western Pacific." '■-■■' '" ■