NO QUICK VICTORY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20860, 12 August 1942, Page 5

NO QUICK VICTORY

allied outlo'ok BAtTLE OF SOLOMONS

JAP. AIR REINFORCEMENTS (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (2.40 pin.) . SYDNEY, Aug. 11. Reports reaching Allied Headquarters indicate that the enemy has moved part of his air strength from the New Britain and New Guinea area and flung it into the battle for the Solomons. In Saturday’s and Sunday’s bombing raids on a number of enemy aerodromes, little interference was met from Japanese fighters and only a few Japanese aircraft, were seen on the ground.. The only fighter interception was over L’akunal aerodrome at Rabaul. Observers at .General MacArthur’s Headquarters say it becomes increasingly evident that the Allies are not to snatch a quick victory from, the enemy who has had months to estaolish himself in the bases now under attack. “To lose this battle of our own seeking would be to invite a further attack from the arrogant Nipponese.” writes the Sydney Morning Herald war correspondent. “To.win it would be only the first of many agonising steps before.we could hope to place the enemy back where he belongs.” “Altogether Too Sweeping” American- suggestions that the second front has, been opened.,iii the Pacific are regarded as “altogether too sweeping.” . “If every Japanese was turned out of the Solomons from Guadalcanal in;the south to Baku in the. north’, it does not follow that Rabaul would be in danger. of falling,” says , the Sydney Mornipg Herald commentator, “and their .considerable base at Rabaul would need to be captured before the Japanese could be said to be checkmated on this front." General MacArthur’s communiques do not mention the Solomon Islands battle for the reason that it is being directed from a centre not within his area,.but the Australian and American air and naval forces under his command are giving valuable assistance in the action.

Second-front suggestions are further discounted by the Daily Telegraph correspondent at General MacArthur’s Headquarters who writes: “Forget those pipe dreams of any grand-scale south-west. ..Pacific-., offensive against the Japanese. Those “hack home, via Tokio” signs, which pilots paint on their planes in the far north, are valu,able only as camouflage colourings. An offensive needs a fleet of modern aircraft-, not only in the war theatre blit rolling off the assembly line.. It needs an armada of vessels and ? high-powered. naval force to convoy them. It needs aircraft-carriers, a submarine fleet and a powerful, fullyequipped invading army; Above all, it needs the public will to accept enormous losses of men and materials. We have many of these requirements, but not nearly enough.”