GRAND STRATEGY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25299, 9 August 1943, Page 3

GRAND STRATEGY

ALLIED WAR PLANS AID FOR RUSSIA AND CHINA (Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Aug. 7. The Allied grand strategy in Europe and the Pacific is td enhance Russia’s effort against Germany and keep China in the war, said the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral E. J. King, at a press conference on the occasion of the anniversary of the Solomons invasion. “Boiled down to the simplest terms.” he said, “ our strategy in Europe is that Russia has a geographical position and man-power paramount with regard to Germany. To take advantage of that basic fact we must implement Russia’s man-power and exploit her position. Furthermore, the Allies are bound to exert every possible effort to divert German forces from the Russian front. “In the Pacific,” Admiral King said, China’s position to Japan is analogous to Russia’s position to Germany. The Allies are following a concerted plan of operations to put increasing pressure on Japanese communications and capture strategic positions from which to give the Japanese more trouble as we go along. We realise, however, that China’s geographical position and man-power are determining factors in the war against Japan. It is too apparent what the difficulties are in getting supplies to China, and therefore one of the most important things is to keep China in the war. You can imagine what the situation would be if China was out of the war.

“In military parlance no eccentric operations are being undertaken in the Pacific.” Admiral King explained that eccentric mean's “an operation which looks attractive, but is really off the main line of effort.” He added that there was nothing eccentric about-the Guadalcanal- operation. “It had a very definite purpose—to secure our supply lines to Australia, which was then threatened with invasion. If we had not acted promptly we would simply have allowed trouble to pile up for us.”

Things had gone rather slowly in the South and South-west Pacific, Admiral King concluded. That was due to lack of means. But we had • now reached a situation in which General MacArthur was co-ordinating the advance in the Solomons with the advance in New Guinea.