Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1942. THE PACIFIC CAMPAIGN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1942. THE PACIFIC CAMPAIGN.

A DECIDED element of caution enters into comments cabled from London yesterday on the naval defeats the Japanese have suffered of late at the hands oE American naval and enforces in. the Pacific—defeats to which a noteworthy addition appears to have been made in air attacks on enemy naval forces in the Aleutian Islands and in adjacent waters. British observers are said to be disinclined at present “to endorse enthusiastic American statements that the Midway Island action broke the backbone of Japanese sea power.” It may be doubted, however, whether there is any serious difference of opinion on one side and the other of the Atlantic as to the stage that has been reached in the Pacific campaign. The weight of responsible opinion in the United States probably is that Japan, in spite of the undoubtedly heavy naval defeats and losses she has suffered, is still to be reckoned with as a very formidable antagonist and it is unlikely that any American authority of standing would claim more than is implied in the reported belief of competent observers in Britain that Japan’s attempts to establish herself on the “fringes” of the Pacific conflict, of which the latest is the landing in the Aleutians, are failing, and that the shift in naval power will compel Japan to fall back in order to safeguard the conquests she has already made, as well as her central stronghold, from American sea and air power. On some grounds a reported British opinion that Australia has been bypassed by Japan and that China is now more immediately threatened than Australia is a little difficult to follow. The possibility that Japan may in fact bypass Australia in order to attempt a drive by way of New Caledonia and Fiji towards New Zealand is perhaps not yet to be dismissed, but the suggestion now advanced is rather that the Asiatic Axis Power is likely to turn back from Australia in order to concentrate against China and to strengthen her defensive position in Asia and -in the Netherlands Indies and other island territories she has occupied. It may be supposed that the Japanese war lords, if they adopt this policy, will do so very reluctantly. Their declared hope was that they would be able to carry aggressive war in the Pacific to a stage of decisive victory and even their arrogance may be expected to feel the strain of having to fall back upon a defensive strategy. At the same time it has to.be recognised that in her own territory, in south-eastern Asia, and in the islands she has invaded, Japan occupies a defensive position of great strength. The looting of occupied territories has given her important additional supplies of foodstuffs and of some classes of war materials. Her defensive powers will be further augmented in the extent to which she is able to establish secure land communications through Eastern China with Malaya and Burma . On the other hand, Japan’s position has its serious weaknesses, one of which is that she will almost certainly have to reckon sooner or later with Russia, as well as with the other Allied Powers. An emphatic opinion on this point was expressed by General Hsiung Shih-fei, head of the Chinese Military Mission to the United States, when he arrived in Washington about six weeks ago. It is only a question of time before Russia becomes a full, fighting belligerent in the Pacific theatre (General Hsiung told an interviewer). A collision between Japan and the Soviet Union is inevitable. On behalf of the Chinese Government, General Hsiung is urging upon the United States and Britain that it is both practicable and desirable for the United Nations to conduct major offensives against Germany and Japan at the same time and-that Japan should on no account be given a breathing spell to wax stronger for wider conquests. The extent to which united Allied action against Japan will be facilitated if and when Russia joins the ranks of her active enemies is well understood.