ALL OUT ATTACK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 265, 8 October 1942, Page 2

ALL OUT ATTACK

IMMINENT IN SOLOMONS. PROBLEMS ~FOR ENEMY. (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Rec. 12.35 p.m.) SYDNEY, Oct. 8. An all-out Japanese, attempt to recapture Guadalcanal Island is imminent, according to many observers, including BrigadierGeneral H. S. Sewell, military adviser at the British Information Department, Washington, but if the enemy remains unwilling to risk a major naval engagement the troops which he has landed by stealth on Guadalcanal may be sacrificed.

Military observers in the United States say the Japanese are withdrawing from New Guinea in order to concentrate on reoccupying the bases in the Solomons.

"Japan may be unable to carry on exacting campaigns simultaneously in New Guinea and the Solomons," stated the New York Times editorially. "In this event it would be logical to sacrifice the operations against Port Moresby if that would help to regain Guadalcanal. While Guadalcanal and Tulagi are in Allied hands the Japanese left flank is exposed to danger." "Insufficient air power to provide cover for both his Papuan and Solomons drives appears to have been the greatest single factor prompting the abandonment of the enemy's land drive against Port Moresby," says the Sydney Morning Herald to-day. "The Japanese have now to show whether they are strong enough in the air to carry the Southern Solomons alone."

The paper adds: The longer the enemy delays his promised attack in force on Tulagi and Guadalcanal the greater the task before him in dislodging the Americans, who are steadily strengthening their positions. The Japanese night landing of reinforcements on Guadalcanal is merely an adaptation of the enemy's set tactics of infiltration, but Guadalcanal, despite its size on the map, offers nothing useful to the attacker or the defender except one flat space on the north-west corner of the island where the all-important aerodrome is situated. So long as the enemy fails to assert sufficient naval and air strength to seize hold of this foot of the strategic Port Moresby-Tulagi-Rabaul triangle, the mere maintenance of his forward troops there, as on the Papuan length of the second leg of the triangle, must be an expensive gesture. Just as the Japanese at lonbaiwa, lacking strength for a further forward movement, were obliged to retire, so the planting of small parties of troops on Guadalcanal must become futile if they are not to be aided in their purpose by strong naval and air action.