ON EVEN TERMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24270, 11 May 1942, Page 5

ON EVEN TERMS

DEFENCE OF CORREGIDOR WATER SUPPLY ANXIETY (Reed. 5.35. p.m.) MELBOURNE, May 9 Unlike the defenders of Batan, the troops on Corregidor did not surrender because of hunger or disease, but most probably owing to a shortage of water, writes the American Frank Hewlett, a United Press correspondent now in Australia. He adds: "I was the last correspondent to leave Corregidor on April 13, when the fortress had sufficient food for approximately six weeks. The military leaders' greatest concern was water. In an effort to conserve supplies baths were eliminated and the batteries were ordered to maintain a five days' supply. "Constant fear existed that bomhs or shells would hit the precious water tanks or artesian wells. Late last December, when Japanese bombers hit Coregidor for the first time, an acute water shortage resulted from broken mains, so it is easy to understand how the supply would be affected during the nearly continuous bombing and shelling since Batan collapsed. I remember well the brutal beating Corregidor took last full moon, and I can think only how the intensity of the Japanese drive i must have increased with Batan's resistance eliminated. "Still I am hapoy, for the sake of Corregidor's defenders, that the rock fell aiter the Japanese attempted a landing, because the ■ brave American soldiers, marines, Filipino scouts and conscripts who long defended the beaches with only rifles to fight back Japanese artillery had a chance to meet the enemy on a semblance of even terms. Although white flags replace the Stars and Stripes on the flagpole amid the shell and bomh craters of Corregidor's once majestic topside parade ground, I am certain that the Japanese, in conquering the fortress, paid the greatest price of any assault of the war." The Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Harold L. Ickes, announced that the headquarters of the Philippine Commonwealth Government will soon be established at Washington hy the President of the Philippines, Senor Manuel Quezon, who has arrived at San Francisco from Australia. INVASION MENACE REAL MR. CURTIN'S WARNING SYDNEY. May 9 The Prime Minister, Mir. J. Curtin, in a broadcast, said the invasion menace was capable at any hour of becoming an actualitv. "I still tell you bluntly," he declared, "that the whole world may very well shake within the next few weeks under the blows that full-scale warfare will strike. Australia cannot escape a blow."