Will japs Concentrate on Defence in Pacific?

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 58, 10 March 1943, Page 5

Will japs Concentrate on Defence in Pacific ?

Spectre of Air War Haunts Leaders

(By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) NEW YORK, Mar. 8. The Japanese, in keeping with their character as military gangsters, may again attempt, and even more desperately, to stave off the inevitable defeat in the Pacific, warns the New York Times. Irrespective of the cost, they may try to capture all the bases from which Allied air attacks can be launched. This would mean a drive against Australia, the entire China coastal area, and then Siberia. “The Japanese concentrations to the north of Australia and the Japanese drives in China therefore cannot be overlooked,” the paper says. “To survive, Japan must take these bases to safeguard her vaunted invulnerability. A decision must be taken this year—but we do not doubt the outcome.” The New York Times says that if Japanese air power is waning, as it appears to be, then Japan’s doom is sealed. “There are indications that the war lords’ dreams of victory are fading even in their own warped minds,” adds. “Tokio has not dared to announce the wiping out of the Japanese convoy* in the Bismarck Sea last week, but the Far East grape-vine can be depended on to spread the news. It will raise the spectre of Allied air armadas over ‘the Land of the Gods’ and will fill the primitive Japanese mind with terror of the unknown.” The London Times stresses that if the flood of Japanese aggression has been halted it has not yet been turned back. “The Allies,” it says, “have a huge task ahead, but they are not likely to repeat their original underestimate of Japanese fighting The Japanese, however, have made an even more serious mistake in launching the war. What they failed to measure was the Allied capacity for recovery. They are now committed to a long war against enemies wrhom they cannot hope to outlast.” Threat Not Removed The special Australian correspondent of the Press Association in a cable from Sydney says that the annihilation of the Bismarck Sea convoy has not removed the Japanese threat to the Southern Pacific. Already new enemy ships have moved into Rabaui Harbour and substantially replaced the 22 vessels sunk off New Guinea waters last week. Military observers in Australia consider that the present concentration of enemy shipping at Rabaui is far heavier than required merely to maintain supplies for the Japanese garrisons in the New Guinea-New Britain area. A reconnaisance photograph now released by General MacArthur’s Headquarters, taken shortly before the departure of the Bismarck Sea convoy from Rabaui, shows more than 60 warships and cargo vessels in the harbour. There are lio fewer than that number there to-day. Correspondents at General MacArthur’s Headquarters declare that the latest reconnaissance reports do not suggest that the probable loss of about 100 planes shot out of combat in the convoy battle has drastically weakened the Japanese air fleets in the Southern Pacific. The enemy is believed to have adequate reserves of Zero protection for his intact bomber strength. “Military leaders in this theatre of the war do not consider that the brilliant Bismarck Sea victory has justified any modification of their belief in the great need for more strength,” writes the Sydney Morning Herald’s war correspondent to-day, adding: “There is considerable difference of opinion between the authorities in this area and the authorities in Washington and London as to what forces and materials are necessary to fight a successful holding war in the Southern Pacific.” More Aircraft Needed “The result of the Bismarck Sea action is a triumph for organisation and airmanship,” says tho Herald correspondent, “and could not by any stretch of imagination be attributed to the crushing force of the Allied air fleet that went out to stop the convoy.” New appeals, it is understood, have been made to Washington for the number of aircraft the authorities here consider to be the very minimum of what is needed for a holding war, writes the Sydney Sun correspondent. Although our aircraft losses in combat have been negligible, maintenance and the replacement of damaged planes are a thorny problem calling for much ingenuity an* improvisation. Japanese movement over the 2000-mile island arc has imposed an additional strain on the vital heavy bomber strength, which is now being used for armed reconnaissance. Their diversion to this work paid handsome dividends in giving a two-day warning of the despatch of last week’s New Guinea convoy.

Authoritative Australian sources disagree flatly with the Washington view that Japanese reinforcement of the Southern Pacific is based wholly on defensive strategy. They state that on his sea routes down to Malaya and across to the Solomons the enemy has tremendous free shipping tonnage above that required for the supply of his needs, and that the 90,000-ton convoy sunk in the Bismarck Sea represented only a small proportion of this free tonnage. . All the main Australian papers to-day feature articles stressing the points outlined above. The articles are written by their own correspondents attached to the South-west Pacific Headquarters. It is emphasised that there is the fullest acceptance here of the Allied grand strategy that the Southern Pacific shall be a holding front—but there is wide disparity in the estimates of what constitute the minimum requirements to guarantee that the front will be held. Despatches from American correspondents to their home papers stress that with sufficient aircraft the Allied fliers could continue to take a terrific toll of Japanese ships, troops, and material. In the words of ono American correspondent, “there are more and better Japanese targets in this area than anywhere else in the Pacific.” New Zealand’s Attitude The Sydney Daily Telegraph to-day features an article by a war correspondent who has just returned from New Zealand, which is highly complimentary to the Dominion’s war effort. But the writer seems surprised that “few New Zealanders fear that their country now stands in very great danger from the Japanese. This feeling persists, despite Mr. Curtin’s Tecent warnings, and it will take a big successful Japanese push to change most New Zealand minds on this point.” While there has been a strengthened feeling of optimism throughout Australia following the Bismarck Sea battle, the official view here is that the “Pacific scene remains broadly the same as it was a week ago, when General MacArthur issued his warning on the growth of enemy preparations north of Australia.**