LONG OPERATION?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 5, 6 July 1943, Page 5

LONG OPERATION?

NEW PACIFIC CAMPAIGN Rec. 12.30 pm NEW YORK, July 5. The establishment of General MacArthur' 6 headquarters in New Guinea indicate that the new Pacific offensive will be a prolonged operation, says the "New York Times." The move also confirms that Australia is now considered safe from invasion. In warning the Allies not to overestimate the gains achieved so far, the "New York Daily News" says: "The j huge Japanese empire has been hardly dented. We see no reason for kidding ourselyes that the war with Japan is yet going any too well." Mr. Hanson Baldwin, the "New York Times" military editor, says that the present Pacific offensive is "net the main effort or anything like it." He

adds: "The present operations are still j in the nature of an offensive-defensive, i Until we attack Rabaul itself it can-! not be said that we have penetrated I the Japanese outpost line, much less assaulted the enemy's main line of x-esistance." Lieutenant-General H. G. Martin, military correspondent of the London "Daily Telegraph," thinks Japan would welcome a big Allied offensive now rather than wait for Germany to be beaten and then have overwhelming Allied strength thrown against her. Japan's aim is to have all the nations in the West, including Russia, bled white by a long-drawn-out war to the point where none would have the spirit or strength to deal with her afterwards, he* says. "Japan's strategy is to make the Allies fight at remote points thousands of miles from the Japanese homeland— and so far it has succeeded," says the "Manchester Guardian."