WAR OF LOST CHANCES

Southland Times, Issue 24684, 4 March 1942, Page 5

WAR OF LOST CHANCES

JAPAN’S WEAK SPOT FAILURE TO STRIKE AT SEA (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) , n NEW YORK, March 2. The New York Post's correspondent, George Weller, in a despatch from Bandoeng, says that Dr van Mook, Lieutenant Governor of the Netherlands East Indies, in an exclusive interview, stated: “The only place where the Japanese can be effectively checked is at sea by naval forces. When in the United States recently I tried to explain the consequences of failing to act promptly against Japan’s only vulnerable point, 1 extended sea lines of communication before bases of occupation were established, but, speaking frankly, the situation has been allowed to deteriorate, not so much through insufficiency and tardiness of materials and reinforcements as through failure to adopt offensive tactics when they were most needed. This has been a war of lost chances, and it is difficult to apportion responsibility for the blunders. “We Dutch deserve some blame because we prepared too slowly. The Americans also arc partly responsible because repeated suggestions that Japan be struck, even with meagre forces, five weeks ago, when six unprotected lines of communication had been opened southward, were greeted with inaction. “The British likewise share responsibility. Had the campaign in Malaya enjoyed better admiralship and generalship Java would have been given enough time.” Dr Van Mook added that the superimposition of Allied command upon the Dutch forces was partly unavoidable, but the effects were strategically deplorable.