ALASKAN PREPARATIONS

Southland Times, Issue 24773, 18 June 1942, Page 5

ALASKAN PREPARATIONS

(Rec. 8.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 16. The Secretary of the Interior, Mr Harold L. Ickes, has ordered the Alaskan civilian population to be placed on a war footing for complete collaboration with the military and naval authorities there. He has also directed the Governor, Mr Ernest H. Gruening, to organize an Alaskan war council immediately. Meanwhile, there are no further reports of the progress of the American air and naval attempts to dislodge the Japanese from their toehold on the western-most Aleutians. However, Mr Anthony Dimond, the Alaskan delegate to Congress, gave a warning that the Japanese must be ousted from the Aleutians promptly before they succeed in establishing bases for an aerial offensive against Alaska.

Mr Dimond disagreed with high military officials here who are inclined to dismiss the Japanese landings lightly. “I am terribly alarmed about it,” he said. A Vancouver message says that Lieutenant-General Stuart, Chief of the Canadian General Staff, declared there was no reason for alarm over the “little invasion” of the Aleutians. Lieutenant-General Stuart departed for Victoria to assume temporary charge of the command. AMERICAN OFFENSIVE ADVOCATED NEW YORK, June 16. “No Navy could withstand Japan’s Pacific losses without being forced to curtail operations,” says The Christian Science Monitor’s naval correspondent. He adds a warning that Japan’s present strength cannot be estimated as no exact information was available about her initial strength on December 7. Speculating on the cause of Japan’s infrequent exposure of her battleships the correspondent says: “This could be due either to her lack of faith in their usefulness or to a desire to husband her meagre store for an ultimate allout attempt for the mastery of the Pacific. Now is the propitious moment for the United States navy to start a drive that will push back the Japanese to their islands.” The Washington correspondent of The New York Times believes that the Aleutian Islands victory though smaller may be fully comparable with Midway victory and that the Japanese have now been driven beyond the Aleutians-Hawaii-Panama line that marks the American sphere. He adds: “With this line secure the air and naval forces would be free to organize the offensive type of operations which are necessary to carry the war to Japan, either from Australia or west from Hawaii by attempts to roll up the scattered Japanese bases and the forces planted in the mandated territories.”