NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 64, 12 September 1942, Page 6

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

JUNGLE FIGHTING

NOT NEW, BUT REVIVAL

The plight of Stalingrad becomes worse day by day as yon Bock throws in all his panoply of war Into the assault in order to take the city before the rains, now imminent, immobilise operations. The Russians are fighting with the utmost desperation to save the city. Novorossisk, according to the latest news, has been evacuated by the Soviet forces. On the Grozny front the position is for the moment much better, but the fall of Novorossisk may sway the balance of strength in favour of the invader. The British Imperial forces are resuming operations in Madagascar and have made fresh landings. In New Guinea the Japanese jungle tactics have gained further ground. There is no change on other fronts. Too much is being made of Japanese jungle fighting, "infiltration" methods and so forth, as if these tactics were new. They are as 6ld as the jungle, the bush, and the forest themselves. What has happened is that the Japanese, studying the char>acter of the country they long ago intended to attack and add to their empire, devised tactics suitable to the terrain and the climate and tried them out in many obscure campaigns in the hilly jungles of Formosa. They thus knew exactly what to do, how to equip themselves best for the job, and how to carry it out. In the gradual conquest of North America lasting over the centuries the white settlers, beginning from the Atlantic coast, met with opposition from the Red Indians in the backwoods which extended almost from the coast of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. The clash resulted in a type of jungle warfare not greatly dissimilar, except in the nature of the forest and the climate, from that in the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the Dutch East Indies islands, New Guinea, and the Solomons. The Red Indians. ; The Red Indians < were the greatest jungle fighters in history, and they held their own against most military ex-. i peditions of regular soldiers trained on ; the barrack square and parade ground. ■ It was not the red coats who pushed i the frontier westward, but the French ■ voyageurs in Canada and the Ameri- ! can backwoodsmen and colonial levies. ■ These fought the Indians in their own ; manner of warfare, "infiltrating" ; through the backwoods and establishing settlements, which' they protected . by fortified posts, thus preparing the ! way for further advances. There were many setbacks and massacres, but the '. Indians were gradually pushed back on to the open prairies where they were at a disadvantage and could no longer stand the pressure, though they hit back many times. Similarly, in New ! Zealand, though the Maoris preferred, as a rule, to stand up and fight from [ their fortified pas, there was a good , deal of bush fighting in the Maori wars ; of the sixties, and here colonial troops, : like yon Tempsky's Forest Rangers, proved more effective than the British ; regiments under Generals. Pratt and , Cameron. The pursuit of Te Kooti and ' Titiokowaru's war in the Taranaki and ' Wanganui districts were more typical ' examples of jungle warfare. The revolutionary and civil wars in North 1 and South America during the last century included much similar fighting. A more recent instance was the war in the Gran Chaco between Bolivia and Paraguay. Here the Paraguayans proved themselves better jungle fighters and had the better of the conflict. ■ Fighting- in Africa. ; The Empire, in the last war, had much jungle fighting in German East : Africa, where regular white troops from India proved ineffective at the : outset, and were replaced by General Smuts's South Africans, who showed ■ themselves more than a match for yon Lettow-Vorbeck's Askaris, backed with ■ a few German seasoned, veterans. The i recent Abyssinian campaign m this ; war an account of which has just , been published, was fought in the : tropics and much of it in very rough i jungle country. The honours of vie- ; tory go to the handful of British. . South African, Indian and native ; African troops who mastered the far i greater force, of Italians and native levies. In the present campaign in Madagascar, also a tropical country, with its quota of jungle. British, South African, and-native African troops are sharing the toils. Picked Men Needed. The conclusion is that jungle warfare must be, fought by men specially picked and trained for the terrain and the climate; that numbers are sometimes more of nuisance than use; that quality, not quantity, tells. All history goes to show that a few tough, resourceful picked men .with a capacity for endurance, can work wonders. The conquerors of the vast Western Hemisphere, British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, were few in numbers compared with their opponents, but their courage and audacity were astounding. The men who are fighting the Japanese in the south-west Pacific have in them the blood of pioneer forefathers who fought in the bush and the back-, woods. They should be equal to the task before them. Madagascar. The new landings in Madagascar will be found on the map on the west coast of the great island and are probably designed primarily as a protection to Allied shipping passing through the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and Africa. The French Governor of Madagascar, General Armand Annet formerly Governor of Jibuti in French Somaliland, takes his orders from Vichy to defend Madagascar. It is reported that Japanese submarines have been given harbourage in Madagascar and that Japanese air officers have visited the island. The British occupation of Diego Suarez, in the far northern tip of Madagascar, has clearly not been sufficient to remove the menace of Japanese interference. Vichy's action in Madagascar is one more example of grave injury done to the cause of the United Nations and of help to the Axis. Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos Islands, occupied by the United States, together with the peninsula of St. Helena on the mainland of Ecuador, to which the islands belong, are essential to the protection of the Pacific entrance to the Panama Cana.l. They are fourteen in number, the largest. Albemarle, about 60 miles long, and have a total area of about 2400 square miles, and a population under a thousand. They are covered with dense vegetation in the south, but with lava in the north, from volcanoes, some of which are still active. The chief export is guano, but the islands are most famous for their tortoises, the largest in the world, some of them weighing over 3001b and living to a great age.