MAY FALL THIS YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 65, 14 September 1943, Page 5

MAY FALL THIS YEAR

JAPANESE BASE AT RABAUL

NEW YORK, September 13. There is a strong possibility that not only New Guinea but adjacent New Britain, with the important Japanese base at Rabaul, will be in Allied hands by the end of the yem% says the correspondent of the United Press in the South-west Pacific, Harold Guard. He says that a tour of the front line areas round Lac and Salamaua left three definite impressions. First, the Japanese have been prevented from reinforcing either their front lines or their nearby supply bases.

Secondly, the Allies for the first time in the South-west Pacific are pursuing a definite line of attack.

Thirdly, the Allies now have the wherewithal to beat the Japanese at iheir own leap-frog game of coastal 'landings, eliminating or neutralising important enemy positions. The current Allied operations in New Guinea are comparable with the Japanese operations in Malaya, during which .enemy air supremacy, plus control of the coast, proved devastating for the defenders. Distances and terrain were likewise similar. General Mac Arthur has turned 'the tables on the Japanese in the South-west Pacific. At the end of the next three months he will have made a long jump towards his proclaimed objective, the Philippines.