BALANCE OF POWER IN PACIFIC

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 24 October 1942, Page 5

BALANCE OF POWER IN PACIFIC

TOUCH-AND-GO AFFAIR Washington, Oct. 22. If the battle in the Solomons is measured by the fierce resolution and courage of our men there can be but one outcome—complete and final victory, declared the Under-Secretary of the Navy, Mr James Forrestal, to the Navy's labour relations conference. He added that the balance of power in the Pacific was a touch-and-go affair. It could shift almost daily. The American forces in the Solomons were fighting without rest in black, thick jungle in the blackest kind of night. They had been bombed by day and shelled by night and they had been attacked from the jungle both day and night. Mr Forrestal, who recently inspected the South-West Pacific bases, said the job o| supplying United States troops in the Solomons was one of the most difficult tasks undertaken by any navy in the history of the world. The Americans were working there from improvised bases hewn from jungles and impassable territory and supplies were on catch-as-catch-can basis. Mr Forrestal believed that operations in the Pacific had kept Japan from attacking Russia this summer. —P.A.