JAPAN'S ARC OF ISLANDS

Grey River Argus, 20 January 1943, Page 1

JAPAN'S ARC OF ISLANDS

Breaking of Hold PROJECTED BY ALLIES. (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rev. 8.30) SYDNEY, Jan. 19. Blows that would be designed to smash the Japanese ’ hold on the arc of islands that are hemming in Australia and New Zealand are visualised by Major General Millard Harmon, , the Commander of the Allied Army I Ground and Air Forces in the South I Pacific., Interviewed by a New ZeaI land journalist, Mr. Winston Turner, ! who is now Sydney “Sun” wa'r cor- | respondent with the United States 1 ±«ee.'b, General Harmon said: “We are not thinking just in terms or holding Guadalcanar, but of getting something else to hold on, New j Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and Solomon Islands. I “Relatively t 0 that of the Allies, General Harmon considers that Japanese air power is weakening throughout the South Pacific. He believes that the enemy is feeling a shortage of pilots and of planes. General Harmon denies that the situation in the Solomon Islands has been static for months. “Operations have been going on all the time,” unsaid. “The activities of our iaal forces on Guadalcanar have Peen very successful. Comparing the fightqualities of the opposing forces, General Harmon commented: “Our troops are led with more flexibility and more technical ingenuity. We cio not think, like the Japanese that it is an asset for a soldier to want 'to die. We think that, i! a soldier wants to die, he is just plain careless. The Japanese is ■> ‘last ditcher.’ But we are not after ditches, we are after the hide cf the Jananese, his holdings, his ships and ms Tokio, and everything he has”

Victorian General PRAISES ALLIED INFANTRY. MORE OF THEM NEEDED. SYDNEY. Jan. 19. Lieutenant General E. F. Herring, Commander of Allied land forces in New Guinea paid a high tribute to the American and Australian infantry for their part in the Papuan fighting. Fifty years old, General Herring is leading King’s Counsel at the Victorian Bar, and has been Chancellor ot the Melbourne Anglican Diocese, the highest ecclesiastical office open to a layman. In 1912, he won a Rhodes Scholarship in his first year at. Melbourne University. From Oxford, he went to the first World War as a trooper, winning a commission in the field and gaining the M.C. and D.S'.O. /n this war, he left Australia in command of the Royal Australian Artillery of the Sixth Division, and fought at Bardia and Tobruk. He has been commander of the Allied Land Forces in New Guinea since last September. He said: “Although the Americans bad no battle experience when they went into action against the welltrained strongly entrenched fresh Japanese troops at Cape Endaiders, they accomplished things which for sheer guts and endurance were unsurpassable. The United States soldiers have been inspired by the examble of their corps commander, General Robert Eichelberger, who nad continually gone into action with his troops, like any company commander. The Australians profited by tneir earlier battle experience in many theatres. Three years of fighting enabled the less efficient and less inspiring leaders to be weeded out. In battle, the A.I.F. discovered its leaders. In one action at Buna one A.I.F. battalion lost every platoon leader, but experienced men from the ranks took their places and the battalion accomplished its task When a unit of ninety Australians was ordered to take a strip of beach near Buna, sixty of them were killed or wounded, but the thirtv left on their feet made their objective. Plenty of] well-traine'd infantry will be needed to win this war. Too many people have been looking for machines—tanks and aeroplanes,—to do their fighting for them, but in the end it is the infantry who still’wins wars and does the real tough fighting.”

SOLOMONS FRONT Air Operations U.S. COMMANDER COMMENTS. (Official War Correspondent N.Z.E.F.) GUADALCANAL., Dec. 30 “The air strength of the United Nations in the South Pacific has Improved greatly in the last three months,” said Major-General Millard F. Harmon, commanding the United States Army Forces throughout this area, in an interview during one ot i his frequent visits to Guadalcanal. I Major-General Harmon explained I that the improvement was due to the development of airfields and other facilities in “You cannot' measure the air effort in terms ot aeroplanes alone,” he added. “You must measure it by all the operational facilities and that includes landing fields, fuelling, maintenance, and personal necessities, in addition to aeroplanes themselves.” Asked to give his reasons for tne long lull in the Japanese attempts to bomb Henderson Field and other objectives on Guadalcanal, MajorGeneral Harmon said the Japanese had never been ■ over-enthusiastic about night operations. “If you go back and check his. operations, you will find he has never used nis air force to any great extent at night, and every time he came down here with bombers in the daytime he took such an awful beating that he can’t afford to keen it up. Nobody can stand losses like that. We could not stand them ourselves if we were losing 80 to 90 per cent, of our attacking forces as he- did.” Referring to the enemy’s efforts to establish a new air base on Munda Point, New Georgia Island only 180 miles from here, Major-General Harmon said that any airfield which the iJapanese possessed within range of cur base was something that had to be taken seriously. “At present we are in the process of neutralising it," he added. Referring to the constant bombing and harassing raids to which Munda field was being subjected, MajorGeneral Harmon was soberly confiJident about the position of the | ground forces on Guadalcanal. “The reduction of the enemy forces here is (just a question of time,” he said, “1 am not worrying so far as any offen-sf-’-e is concerned. It is only a matter of cleaning the mout.” Japs Bomb Refugees "“SYDNEY, Jan. 19. I The storv of a Japanese air attack lon flving-boats carryinc refugees from Java, at Broome on March 3 has been released. At least 15 flying-boats

the occupants of which were mostly women and children, were destroyed The deathroll was heavy. Broome had been used as a base for British and Dutch machines bringing refugees to Australia. The Zeros concentrated on the flying-poats, diving low to pick off each in turn. They did not attack the town itself, but raided aircraft on the local aerodrome before Hying off.