HOLDING WAR IN PACIFIC Mr Curtin Hits Out

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22554, 12 April 1943, Page 2

HOLDING WAR IN PACIFIC

Mr Curtin Hits Out

CANBERRA, April 9. “Let us hope the Pacific will not become the front where the United Nations lost the war/’ said the Prime Minister, Mr J. Curtin, in a special statement supplementing that of General MacArthur on the occasion of the first anniversary of the fall of Bataan. Mr Curtin's statement virtually was a strong denunciation of the United

Nations’ plan of a holding war in the Pacific, and was the Prime Minister's first criticism of Allied grand strategy since the Casablanca conference in January decided on the "beat Hitler first" policy

The statement continued: “The anniversary of the fall of Bataan is a sad reminder that the Pacific has become a front of lost opportunities. The United Nations successively failed to establish a rallying point in the Philippines, at Singapore, in the Netherlands East Indies, and at Rabaul. The flood of aggression has flowed to the verges of the last main base in the South-west Pacific. In their advance the Japanese have been highly vulnerable to counter-attacks and golden opportunities have been missed to deal them some heavy blows. As a ressult they have been allowed to consolidate and their defeat will now be a longer and harder task. Australia has shown ready willingness to co-operate in ether war theatres at considerable risk to her own security. Others have decreed that Germany must be beaten first. We must, therefore, exert every endeavour to ensure that the Pacific does not become the lost front. Bataan and Singapore stand as warnings to the united unions. They have a symbolism for the future too significant to be forgotten.”