RIGHT TACTICS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1942, Page 3

RIGHT TACTICS

FIGHTING THE JAPS

MACARTHUR'S ADVICE

(By Telegraph—Prgss Association—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Rec. 2 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The Japanese soldier was no easy enemy, General MacArthur told a United States Army unit on service "somewhere in Australia." ! He was a fighter who did not ask quarter, nor did he give any. He fought courageously and intelligently. Good troops, however, could stop the Japanese. His Philippine army proved that. By pushing, on instead of falling back Ins forces had confused and upset the Japanese. General MacAr-thur exhorted the unit never to let the Japanese attack. When a Japanese attacked he did so to a preconceived plan, and the coordination and co-operation between his forces were excellent. When attacked, however, the enemy did not show to the same advantage. The Japanese soldier had an extraordinary capacity to fight to the end. He never stopped. The Japanese had no use for quitters. The Japanese tactics, said General MacArthur, were to disperse rapidly along the enemy's lines in groups never more than 1000 and keep pushing until the enemy's weakness was i found. Then they hit hard. The Japanese were the greatest exploiters of their opponents' inefficiency that the world had ever. seen. Any weakness in confronting them was fatal. Expresing his confidence m the ngntiing ability of the troops he was addressing, General MacArthur said mat all he asked them when they went into action was for each man to kill one Japanese. If they did that, they would win, but if, when hard pressed, they began to look for a position in the rear or began to think it beyond human endurance to continue to fight, they would be destroyed physically as well las losing their reputation in the eyes of their friends and their country. I They would find that frequently they would have to fight with local odds against them, but if they fought as sturdily as the Japanese, eventually the enemy would be defeated. Always the man won who fought to the end, whose, nerves did not go back.on him, and who never thought of anything but the will to victory.