LOSING INITIATIVE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24302, 17 June 1942, Page 3

LOSING INITIATIVE

JAPANESE IN PACIFIC

NOW ON THE DEFENSIVE UNITED STATES OFFENSIVE LONDON, June 15 Opinion is practically unanimous in "Washington that the initiative in the Pacific is passing from Japan to the United States. There has been a resurgence of confidence as more accurate estimates of the significance of the Coral Sea and Midway battles confirm some of the more hopeful first conclusions. Admiral Yates Stirling, naval commentator of the United Press, however, is of the opinion that the United States needs more island bases, since these two battles proved that land-based planes are superior to carrier-borne aircraft. Carriers Vulnerable Major George Eliot, writing in the New York Herald-Tribune, says that Japan has lost all her important air-craft-carriers. He adds: "The enemy has been seriously, if not fatally, handicapped for new naval offensives in the Pacific, and the initiative has now passed to the United States." Major Eliot estimates that Japan began the war with 11 naval carriers, of which five were small and useful only in protected waters. "The real strength of the Japanese carrier-borne aviation lay . in six much larger ships, all of which have now been lost," he adds. He points out that the war so far has not only proved the value of big aircraftcarriers, but also their vulnerability.

China Now the Objective Competent observers in Britain deduce significant changes in Japan's plans and strategy as a result of her defeats in the Coral Sea and Midway battles. Many of them express the belief that Australia has been by-passed and that China is now more immediately threatened than Australia. They also believe that Japan's attempts to establish herself on the "fringes" of the Pacific conflict, of which the latest is the landing in the Aleutians, are failing and the shift in naval power will compel Japan to fall back in order to safeguard conquests already made, a swell as her central stronghold, from American sea and air power.

The Manchester Guardian regards the Cora] Sea battle as an important turning point and adds: "Ihe American victory at Midway, at least for a time, will compel the Japanese to drop the idea of a large-scale offensive far from their own coasts, but their position for the defensive remains very strong." While holding that the phase of an easy Japanese victory has now passed, British observers are still cautious in their comments on the extent_ of the Japanese losses. 1 hey are disinclined at present to endorse enthusiastic American statements that the Midway action broke the backbone of Japanese sea-power. ________

AVENGER PLANE

SPEEDY TORPEDO CARRIER (Real" 0.35 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 15 The Navy Department has permitted the Grumman Aircraft Corporation to release details of the new Avenger tor-pedo-plane, which has been m mass production for several months, Ihe plane was used for the first time m the Midway battle, in which it proved most j)htne jn the world carrying a torpedo entirely enclosed within the fuselage, increasing the surprise element. Its cnusing range is MOO miles and it has a ceiling of 20,000 feet, with a speed of over 2/0 mi os •m hour. The plane carries a 20001b. torpedo load, has high manoeuvrability, is heavily armed, and is one of the largest planes operating from a carrier.

TERRIFIC DESTRUCTION

RAIDS ON OCCUPIED FRANCE (Reed. 5.:55 p.m.) LONDON, June 10 The Times states that _ a French technical journal's publication of the assessments for insurance claims and the estimates of the "cost of reconstruction shows the enormous destruction wrought by the Loyal Air Force raids on occupied France. A preliminary estimate oi the destruction at the tenant works is 400,000,000 francs. Iho total damage done to French dockyards between May 7 and 21 is computed at 300,WU,UUU francs. The Loyal Air force did 20 000,000 francs' worth of damage in an attack on the. Nantes docks on May g \ny resumption of work there is unlikely before the beginning of July. Other well-known wonts destroyed besides the Gnome-Rhone factory at Gennevilliers are the Fonderie feuutee Loiraine - Dietrich factory. Ericssons, makers of navigation apparatus, wa.s burned out; the Amiot aero works and the Matfork worlcs at Poissy was entirely destroyed, and the submarine works at Trav-sur-Seine was about halt destroyed. The damage at the submarine works included the destruction of three submarines under construction.