RABAUL ARMADA

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22475, 9 January 1943, Page 5

RABAUL ARMADA

What Is Objective?

Possible Alternative

By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright SYDNEY, January 8.

More enemy ships are still arriving in the Rabaul area. The present concentration is authoritatively reported to be the most formidable gathered at this key Japanese base at any stage of the war. This assessment of the armada’s strength has been made since losses totalling 150,000 tons were inflicted by aircraft of General MacArthur’s command.

While the role of Rabaul as a dispersal point involves periods of unavoidable congestion, the “Daily Telegraph” to-day declares “Official Federal circles are concerned because the latest move means a Japanese offensive either against the Southern Solomons or against New Guinea. It isj possible that, linked with the serious activities in Timor the enemy’s move around Rabaul may presage a twopronged drive by the Japanese. Northwestern Australia may be the goal of one enemy offensive, Moresby or Guadalcanal could be the objective of the other. The situation need never have arisen had the Allied leaders heeded the repeated appeals by Mr Curtin for greater air and sea power in this theatre.” Securing Defensive Arm Many observers believe that Japanese concentration of shipping at Rabaul implies no more far-reaching offensive than is necessary for the enemy to secure his defensive arm in the Solomons, New Guinea, and Timor. But the “Sydney Morning Herald” points out that whatever its purpose the inference is inescapable that added air strength for the United Nations would make it a comparatively simple matter to play havoc among any shipping the Japanese chose to move sevth of Truk. "Shouting across the world concerning matters of strategical importance” has been deplored by Mr P. C. Spender, M.P., who recently returned from a visit to America and England. “I believe that from the Prime Minister down there should be a Minister going overseas every two months to explain our problems face to face with those in authority,” declared Mr Spender. "The only way to convince people who matter is by sitting down with them and talking.” While still advocating that Mr Curtin should visit Washington, Australian newspapers to-day declare it is unlikely that the Prime Minister himself will make a trip at this stage. Mr Curtin is 58 to-day. Quickening War Tempo Further moves to quicken the war tempo of Australia have been announced. Six hundred thousand workers in reserved occupations are to have their exemptions reviewed within the next few weeks. Men not indispensible to industry will be made available for military service. Others who cannot be released immediately will be replaced as opportunity occurs. Mr Curtin declares that to conserve manpower it will be necessary ir *he coming months to restrict the further volume of goods available to the civilian population. Hardships and Illnesses "The hardships and illnesses suffered by the troops in the New Guinea area are stated to have appalled the Prime Minister (Mr J. Curtin). For the next few months Australia’s manpower resources will be pre-occupied with feeding fresh and fit men to these campaigns so that those broken in health may have some respite.” This statement by a Sydney “Daily Telegraph” writer reinforces the view that the fighting in Papua has been the most costly and arduous campaign in which Australian troops have fought in this war. This opinion is that of the veteran A.I.F. troops back from the Middle East. To-day Australian war observers are concerned as to whether the high casualties of tropical island warfare are to be permitted to become a mounting total, or whether another strategy should be devised to conserve manpower. A studied contribution to the consideration of this problem has been made by Mr Gavin Long, the “Sydney Morning Herald” defence correspondent. “The cost of the Papuan campaign is not to be estimated alone by the casualty lists’ totals,” says Mr Long, "but by considering that most of the losses have fallen on veteran units to which Australia must look for her outstanding young fighting leaders. The Allies are having the best of it in the South-west Pacific so far as the air and sea wars are concerned, but the Australian forces, plus the forces of America so far released for this theatre are ranged against one of the largest and most experienced armies in the world. Comments from New York and London praising the heroism and stamina of the ‘little band’ of Allied troops around Gona and Buna show that in some places the size of the forces involved in the New Guinea campaign have been under-estimated. The forces involved in the whole area from the main Japanese base at Rabaul across to the Allied base at Port Moresby are comparable with those employed in most of the nonEuropean campaigns in this war. Battalions of veterans—the most widely experienced soldiers of any British army to-day—have been worked down by sickness and casualties.”

Supply Difficulties Discussing the difliftilties of supply and the nature of the fighting which helped to make the New' Guinea campaign exacting and expensive, Mr Long says it is doubtful if any other force equal in size has ever been supplied by air for so long a period. To fight such a campaign using aircraft as the principal means of supporting the men’s supplies was an imposing undertaking. There were times when units were down to their last tin of rations because the supply aircraft could not get through. "Jungle fighting, too, offers few opportunities for inexpensive victories of the kind so often won in open warfare,” declares Mr Long. “In this kind of country senior commanders can do little more than keep their troops suoplied and hope for th® befct. Manoeuvre in the sense in which the word is used of campaigns in Europe or the desert is seldom possible. Where the Japanese have lost more heavily than the Australian and American troops in New Guinea it has been because individual soldiers have been shrewder and more resourceful than the men they have been fighting. Careful battle planning, the use of surprise and rapid decisions by senior commanders, such as won spectacular successes at small cost in the North African campaigns, will seldom be reproduced in the Solomons or New Guinea. Battle casualties will generally not represent the only big loss. A large number of men put out of action will be victims of tropical diseases. The decision which must be made in the coming campaigns is whether to relieve the units that suffered heavily and rest them in a temperate climate where they can put on last weight and build up resistance again, or r to accept 1L as the inevitable that a large number of soldiers serving in this climate must always be suffering intermittently from malaria, dysentery and skin infections. “The coming year offers the prospect of increasingly heavier demands on Australian manpower to reinforce our brigades which are carrying out the

fighting or garrison roles in malariaridden country. The major decision which has to be made is whether the Allied land forces are to continue attacking Japanese strongpoints in the islands without naval superiority, or whether they should play a defensive role and hang on until we have naval and air superiority so decisive that the Japanese outposts can be isolated from seaborne supplies. It can be argued in favour of this latter policy that unless it is adopted our available army may be worn so thin that a series of setbacks to the American and Australian air force, which at present is the only effective defence against the renewal of a Japanese southward drive, might leave Australia with wholly inadequate protection against a determined attack.”

“Mr Curtin has done well to give a warning that the recent Allied successes in the Pacific must not encourage the slightest relaxation of the effort in the struggle with such a formidable, well prepared enemy,” declares “The Times” editorially. “Japan’s strategic position has not been seriously weakened. Her southern chain of occupied forts from the Northern Solomons to Lae, from Lae to Timor, and from Timor to Sumatra, and Singapore to Akyab, , is equally valuable as a defensive barrier or a springboard for an offensive.”