RECAPTURING ISLANDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 98, 25 March 1942, Page 5

RECAPTURING ISLANDS

TASK EMPHASISED. WASHINGTON, March 23

The United States High Commissioner in the Philippines (Mr Sayre), who is now in the country, declared to the Press' that he doubted whether tlio Japanese would make an all-out attempt at present to capture the fortresses of Corregidor and Batan Peninsula, because of the high price they would have to pay for it. The Japanese would now concentrate on Northern Australia.

He emphasised that the wiuning back of the Philippines would bo a tremendous tusk because of the great distances and problems of communications, but everything possible was 1 being done to get material there. He asserted that General MacArthur was transferred to Australia “specifically to make sure that we get back to the Philippines and drive out the Japanese.”

Mr Sayre stressed the vital importance of reinforcing General MacArthur in Australia, frorii which base it was hoped to wage the fight for the eventual recapture of the Philippines. He said this would mean straight-out fighting, since there was no backdoor to the islands.

The Tokio radio quoted Colonel Kikusaburo Okaada, a member of the War Ministry’s Planning Bureau, who, in an interview in the Asalii Shimbun, said that Japan's fighting forces will be supplied from the territories where they arc stationed to lessen as much as possible the drain on the homeland. He said the military administration of the occupied territories must continue for some time for reasons of national security. The resources of the occupied territories must be developed to enable Japan to wage a long war.