Hard Task Ahead To Defeat Japan

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 208, 2 September 1943, Page 5

Hard Task Ahead To Defeat Japan

SYDNEY, Sept. 1. “Between long-range plans lor the defeat of ' the Japanese and tho actualities of short-range ngnting, there is a striking contrast to-day,” says the Sydney Morning Herald in a leading article. “Tne slow, grinding, painful struggle goes on in New Guinea and the Central .jolomona while, following the Quebec conference where the military discussions were turned very largely on the war against japan, there has been mucu talk of Allied preparations for major attacks. Almost every day brings reports of rapidly increasing American naval and air power to be devoted in an expanding measure to the Pacific, rhese are varied by fire-eating speeches about ‘wading in and tearing Japan apart with dynamite, and gutting her with incendiaries.’ Such statements are good for morale, no doubt, but the central problem remains—how to get at tins tough, cunning enemy who has flung a great defensive screen far out rrom his home islands.

“When the Japanese established their new empire, the Allies lost bases indispensable for operations against Japan proper, and a year’s hard fighting in the South-western Pacific Islands has shown how difficult it is going to be to win them back. In the tropical mountains of New Guinea and the festering jungles of the {Solomons, the Japanese have fought with fanatical obstinacy and ferocity. There has been no alternative to these savage, tedious island battles and more of them will nave to be waged in the unavoidable struggle for bases. “But in the larger Pacific war, the Allies can have no intention indefinitely of fighting the Japanese air strip by air strip, island by island, and man to man. That would mean making war on Japan’s own terms; we have to force her to fight on ours. Japan has enormous reserves of trained soldiers and she would like nothing better than to engage and exhaust our manpower in interminable struggles on the land. What she cannot afford are naval anu air losses on the scale sustained around New Guinea and the Solomons. The Allies, unquestionably, have been winning the war of attrition in these fields, and it must be their object to exploit to the full their advantages at sea and in the air.