Where Big Guns Have Smaller Voice Than Jungle Stalkers

Northern Advocate, 26 July 1943, Page 2

Where Big Guns Have Smaller Voice Than Jungle Stalkers

(Special. 12.15.) SYDNEY, Tiffs Day.

“It is a long, bloody, wearisome business, straining the stamina and morale of white troops to the utmost. Tiie better fed white troops have been in their period of preparation the more their stamina and morale are strained by weeks of iron rations, floundering through swamps and groping through grim, green glades of which they are intrinsically more afraid than the enemy.” This extract from a despatch of an Australian war correspondent, observing reduction of the Japanese fortress airfield of Munda, New Georgia, epitomises the difficulties of land warfare throughout the islands of the south and south-west Pacific. The correspondent declares that the enemy defence of Munda is in line with Japan’s military policy frankly announced by a Japanese admiral before the war. The admiral said: "We will hold to the last man every inch of territory we gain. We will make it so terribly expensive to evict us that we think you will get tired. We are prepared to sacrifice 10,000,000 men in this war. How many million men are you prepared to sacrifice?" Machines Save Slaughter

The American answer has been concentration of superior air, naval and mechanical land warfare equipment to achieve spectacular results. But the Australian correspondent says that in final analysis tiie outcome will be decided between a few thousand men stalking one another in the jungle.

"They are living, fighting and dying' in /x-rrain where the jeep is not the answer to everything,” he writes, "where even a big gun has a smaller voice than silent men with grenades, where a few men, able to stand the strain of living like animals, are worth many men who know only how to live like human beings. Munda will fall soon—but however soon Munda falls the men who planned this campaign will know more about fighting the Japanese than they did before. Living Like Animals At Munda, as in the Buna-Gona beachhead ol' Papua, the Japanese have dug under coconut logs, living and fighting like earth-burrowing animals. Machinegun and mortar nests provide fields of interlocking fire. Each Japanese position must be stormed at -the risk of heavy casualties or reduced singly by artillery. In New Guinea, too, Allied forces are making increased use of .artillery, as well as air support, to batter Japanese defences and pave the way for our ground troops. These tactics are being exploited in the Mount Tambu area, just five miles from the enemy base of Salamaua. Here a battle of ridges is going' on. "Tiie Japanese stick to heights, most of them razor-back and to all intents are impregnable,” writes a New Guinea war correspondent. “But Australian troops, now thoroughly seasoned, have developed their own technique. The accuracy of supporting American gunnery is described by Australian front-line leaders as superb. Today we gained another 100 yards of precious ground. Japanese counters to our repeated attacks of the past few days have cost them 80 killed and an unrecorded number wounded. Destruction of the enemy has been materially assisted by co-ordinated air strikes designed to blast the Japanese out of their foxholes.”

Thus in both New Guinea and New Georgia the Allied tactics of air and ground co-operation, combined with employment of superior mechanical forces, are being pitted against the elemental foxhole cunning of the Japanese. The outcome is likclv to be an important factor in plotting the future shape of the Pacific war.”