PACIFIC THEATRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 138, 12 June 1943, Page 6

PACIFIC THEATRE

IMPROVED POSITION

ENEMY LIMITATIONS

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrteht.) (Rec. 2.15 p.m.) LONDON, June 11. "Over-optimism has never been one of Mr. Curtin's failings," says "The Times," commenting editorially on the Australian Prime Minister's announcement that the Japanese cannot now invade' Australia. "Until recently Mr. Curtin's military predictions nave been marked by extreme caution —and not infrequently tinged with manifest anxiety. This background makes his optimistic statement more impressive than ever.

"The inability of the Japanese Fleet to intervene on behalf of the doomed garrison of Attu suggests that at sea the enemy is faced by a threatening growth of American strength and an accelerated decline of his own power. In the land-studded areas of the South Pacific the interdependence of air and sea power helps to explain the improvement of the Allied fortunes." Broadcasting from New York on the completion of his visit to the United States, the Australian Minister of External Affairs, Dr. H. V. Evatt, said that great increases in the Allied air strength in the South-west Pacific would soon permit ceaseless pressure against the enemy positions in that theatre of war. He warned of the cost of warfare against the Japanese and said that the Australian-American casualties in the New Guinea fighting were greater than the total' of the Allied casualties in the whole Tunisian campaign. The casualties from tropical diseases exceeded those in battle by four to one. " , ~,,.» Dr. Evatt stressed Ihi plight of Australia and New Zealand in March, last year, when there were no modern' lighter planes, only a handful of tanks and very weak anti-aircraft defences ; with the forces in the South Pacific. He pointed out that the immediate fate of New Zealand was largely dependent upon the fate of Australia .and said that neither country could be enthusiastic ■about a defensive role which hardly accorded with the Anzac tradition. Now, however, the Allied forces throughout the world were making r<4ady to attack. Whenever the final sfaot was fired, whether in Europe or* fin the Pacific, Australian and New ■Zealand fighting forces would be present. ...-