RETREAT AHEAD?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 140, 16 June 1942, Page 5

RETREAT AHEAD?

LONDON'S VIEW OF JAP PLANS

(Rec. 1 ■p.m.), LONDON, June 15. Competent observers in Britain deduce significant changes in Japan's plans and strategy as the result of her defeats in the Coral Sea and Midway battles. Many of them express the belief that Australia has been by-passed and China is now more immediately threatened than Australia. They also believe Japan's attempts to establish herself on the "fringes" of the Pacific conflict, of which the latest is the landing in the Aleutians, are failing and the shift in naval power will compel Japan to fall back in order to safeguard the conquests already made, as--weir as her central stronghold," from American sea and air power. OFFENSIVE BLUNTED. The "Manchester Guardian" regards the Coral Sea Battle as an important | turning-point, and adds: "The American victory at Midway, at least for a timei will compel the Japanese to drop the idea of a large-scale offensive far from their own coasts, but their position for the defensive remains very strong." m > While holding that the phase of easy Japanese victory has now passed, British observers are still cautions "in their comments on the extent of Japanese losses. They are disinclined, at present, to endorse the enthusiastic American statements that the Midway action broke the backbone of Japanese sea power.