THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, June 17, 1942. HOLDING AUSTRALIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24944, 17 June 1942, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, June 17, 1942. HOLDING AUSTRALIA

The special correspondent of the \ New Zealand Press Association in Sydney reports cheeringly that Allied air defences in the vulnerable north of the continent have been considerably strengthened since the Coral Sea battle. He quotes, also, the opinion of a military observer, based on observation of the effective employment of land-based aircraft in the Coral Sea actions, that a sufficient force of modern machines of that type would make Australia safe from sea-borne invasion. As will be seen, the emphasis is again, as for many weeks past, placed on the question of the adequacy of Allied air strength. There was considerable concern in the Commonwealth when the resumption of large-scale fighting on the Russian front a few weeks ago appeared to be diverting American attention from the South-west Pacific. The Washington correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald cabled then that the official and public mind in the United States had " veered with amazing unanimity towards Russia." Dr Evatt, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, appears to have encountered a similar attitude in Great Britain. Otherwise his eloquent special pleading there for clearer recognition of the vital need for holding Australia, as the last strong base in the South-western Pacific from which a counter-offen-sive against Japan may be launched, would have been rather superfluous. Actually the appeals of Australian Ministers for the speed-ing-up of Allied aid to the Commonwealth made an impression in both Washington and London, where assurances that reinforcements of men and machines would be on a sufficient scale were readily given. Australian anxiety, however, is not lest aid will not be forthcoming so much as lest Allied planning may be developed too slowly and Australian security may yet be endangered by what the Sydney Morning Herald has described as "miscalculation of Japan's mobility and strength." It would certainly be unwise to assume that the Coral Sea and Midway victories and the damaging blows struck at Japan's sea power off the Aleutians have so impaired the enemy's naval strength as to make quick recovery impossible. According to this morning's cables expert opinion both in Great Britain and America is inclining towards the view that Japan may be compelled to revise, if not actually to abandon, her grandiose strategy for the encirclement and isolation of the Commonwealth. One American view, as reported, is that the enemy has been "seriously if not fatally handicapped for new naval offensives in the Pacific," and that the initiative has now passed to the United Nations. Optimism of this kind, as the progress of the war in other spheres has already shown, might lead to dangerous error, and we may be tolerably sure that it will be vigorously combated in those quarters where the security of the whole Pacific area to the south-west is a matter of daily and, indeed, hourly concern. The facts no doubt justify a modest recovery of confidence. We are entitled to interpret the enemy's recent heavy reverses as representing the first real check to his plans for Far Eastern and Pacific domination. Nevertheless it has to be-reckoned that .desperation alone may make it imperative for him to strike again, with all the power at his command, for a foothold in Australia and-in'the island archipelagos that girdle-it on the north and east. Nothing that has so far occurred to limit Japan's offensive capacity abates the need for the swiftest establishment in Australia of a force capable not only of keeping her shores safe,, but also of hitting back on an ever-widening arc. If the enemy has been seriously weakened in, and adjacent to, Australian waters, the conclusion should be that the opportunity to turn on him may present itself earlier than had previously been thought possible. And against the tremendous needs of that day—the day of counteroffensive on a decisive scale—every available man, machine and ship will be required in the right places.