ENERGY WARSHIPS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 3, 3 July 1943, Page 5

ENERGY WARSHIPS

RUSHING REINFORCEMENTS Rec. 1.45 p.m. WASHINGTON, July 2. Japanese warships are rushing reinforcements to the Solomons area, according to a Chungking: report. The American navy is believed to be-ready for a big clash which it is thought must eventually take place.

"Sooner or later the Japanese must throw in their fleet as their main Stake to Win or lose," says the "New York Herald Tribune" military c6rrespondent, Major George Fielding Eliot. "It is a decision that is being forced on them and one which the diminishing quality of their air power renders even more desperate than it might have been. If tne Japanese risk their fleet to save Bougainville they will bring that fleot dangerously close to our shore-based aircraft." Tokio radio said the Allied offensive had been expected and that fighting for the annihilation, of the AngloAmerican forces was on. It claimed that the Japanese defences in the South-West Pacific were impregnable. Rear-Admiral Hideo Yano, Chief off the Japanese Navy Press Section, described the new Solomons action as a death grapple between Japan and the United States. J "It is evident that the Allied High Command is not proceeding on a haphazard basis, but, working in harmony with the Australians and Chinese, now has a complete programme for carry* ing this phase to to successful conclu* sion," writes Glen Perry in the "New York Sun." He says the Americans in the Pacific are getting into position to bring heavier pressure on important Japanese bases and eventually on Tokio.« ■ "■'■ .„ Coupled with the present moves will be pressure drives in Burma aiding China once the monsoons are over.