HOW TO BEAT JAPANESE

Southland Times, Issue 24685, 5 March 1942, Page 5

HOW TO BEAT JAPANESE

LESSONS FROM MALAYA OFFENSIVE SPIRIT AND MOBILITY (Rec. 5.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, March 4. “Australia need have no fear of the Japanese if we take advantage of Malaya’s lessons,’ said Major-General Gordon Bennett. “But if we fail to learn from experience there can be no other answer but defeat. In Australia our one idea must be attack, attack, attack. “The Japanese, from general to private, have the offensive spirit, and that must be our spirit. The Japanese are not super-soldiers. Simplicity is the keynote of all their tactical methods. In Malaya our difficulty was the complicated system we have evolved in our army which operates against easy and rapid co-ordination. “For example, the Japanese have found that the bicycle is an easy and good means of transport in jungle country. Compared with our motortrucks, their bicycles had the advantages that they did not need fuel. They were easy to conceal, and their .troops could split up into sections and could move fast along tracks on which no lorry could move. “The Japanese won their battles by manoeuvring. They were not loaded down with complex equipment. Their main weapons were tommy-guns, machine-guns and mortars. “Answers to the Japanese tactics are aggressive inspiration from the top and brilliant junior leadership. The Australian troops in Malaya succeeded in every clash with the Japanese by throwing overboard the 1918 text-book methods.” MEN AND THE ARMS A message from London says that The Daily Express, in the most outspoken leading article for many months, states that a “Britain which wants

ultimate victory without facing details or preparing for breakdowns doesn't know her job. Nine convoys of Empire war supplies went to Singapore—a gift for the Japanese. We also got no value from the arms piled into Libya where we were superior in the air. “Britain and America have the greatest war potential the world has ever seen. The Japanese get the maximum results from moderate material. We get moderate results from the finest material ever put into battle. We are in pressing need of weapons but we are in equally pressing need of men who can handle them and think in terms of them. We must put ‘battle craft’ at the top of our requirements.”