Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, SEPT. 24, 1942. NEW GUINEA FIGHTING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 253, 24 September 1942, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, SEPT. 24, 1942. NEW GUINEA FIGHTING.

It is of the utmost importance that Port Moresby should be held by the United Nations. It is a vitally strategic point, whose fall. Major Fielding Eliot (the well-known American military writer) says, would entail the loss of our footholds in the Solomons and the disappearance of bright hopes of ejecting the Japanese from this part of the Pacific. There is also the equally vital aspect of prestige. The Japanese have won many victories, and the Solomons counterstroke must be regarded as the commencement of a continuous drive to restore our positions in the Pacific. To keep Port Moresby safe from the enemy must be regarded as an essential part of this drive. The Japanese, however, have achieved what was confidently believed a few weeks -ago to be impossible. They have traversed the Owen Stanley Ilange, have widened their trails, and are steadily bringing forward supplies for the assault upon Port Moresby. The greatest gallantry has been shown by | the Australian soldiers, but this is not enough. The Japanese by their methods have outwitted the defence and we have not profited from the lessons of Malaya and Burma. Major Eliot says that if Port Moresby is lost it will be through failure of leadership, resourcefulness, and imagination. These are three points which have been emphasised by other writers who declare that new military methods must be adopted if the Japanese are to be beaten.

The war correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph (Mr Osmar White), in outlining several points, says that "our men must be trained with almost fanatical thoroughness in personal camouflage and concealment; in silent movement in all types of country both by day and by night; in the art of living on and in forest country with complete self-confidence, so that a week or a fortnight in the bush without fighting can be regarded as a rest; and in close quarters sniping, involving the greatest patience and ability to keep still for many hours in uncomfortable positions." It is essential that'troops destined to face Japan in the tropical countries she now holds shall be trained in this manner. Men are available in large' numbers with the initiative, resourcefulness, and intrepidity to master the Japanese, but their training and equipment must confonn to the demands of jungle warfare. "In their conflict with the mechanised Occident the Japanese are superior," says a New York writer commenting upon Major Eliot's views. "The Occidental commanders are still surprised into forfeiting one advantage after another by the enemy's ability to keep moving where trucks and traelors are useless." This superiority must be overcome and if New Zcalanders are to meet the Japanese then their training must be adapted to jungle country, calling upon those skilled in the bush, whether from work or from deer or pig hunting, to teach men how to fight and live in it. Parade ground drill has ho place in. jungle warfare.