Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1942. AN OFFENSIVE OPENED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1942. AN OFFENSIVE OPENED.

AS official reports stand at time of writing, no justification appears for jubilation over the opening of an offensive north of Australia by American and Australian forces. "With the picture of the hard lighting that has been in progress over a period of several days far from completely filled in, it is clear that there are serious losses to be set against the measure of success gained by the Allied forces and that no easy and sweeping triumph has been or is expected. A grim continuing ordeal of battle appears to be in prospect and one which will make no ordinary demands on the courage of the Allied fighting forces engaged and on. the resolution of the nations behind them. That being said, however, it is definitely encouraging that the Allies have. launched an offensive in the South-Western Pacific. It is not to be supposed that they would have done so, on the scale on which operations are already shown to. have developed, with minor or limited objects in view, or without being reasonably assured of their ability to persevere, in an inevitably difficult and costly task in spite of the losses it must be expected to entail. There is point in the observations made by Major Fielding Eliot, in an article in. the New York “Herald-Tribune” and quoted in a cablegram yesterday:— The attack will hardly stop in the south-eastern Solomons. . Merely to seize a few of these islands would be to leave isolated garrisons exposed to concentrated Japanese attacks under conditions wholly favourable to the enemy. It is therefore quite possible that what we are now seeing is the beginning of a campaign to drive the enemy off the whole area. The nature of the task undertaken has been stated very frankly by the United States Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral King). Observing that the operations in the Tulagi area are significant as marking the first assumption of the l initiative by the Allies, he added that it should bo understood that the operation was one of the most complicated and difficult in warfare and that: — Considerable losses such as are inherent in any offensive operation must be expected as the price to be paid tor hard-won experience which is essential to the attainment of far-reaching results. It is, of course, a very material fact that while the Allies in the South-Western Pacific are smashing their way into the chain of island bases the enemy has established around the north and north-east of Australia, with recent menacing extensions towards New Caledonia and Fiji, .American forces simultaneously have bombarded the base established by the Japanese at Kiska, in the western Aleutian Islands. For the time being Japan and her .Axis partners derive great advantage from the heavy and competing calls made upon Allied resources, as yet only partly developed and incompletely mobilised. AVith. Japan even now, however, being attacked in areas as far apart as the North Pacific and the South-Western Pacific there is at least the dawning promise of a time, perhaps not very far distant, when the present strain upon her military resources and supply organisation will, be multiplied many times over. Meantime the Allies are faced by the heavy and costly task of breaking their way into a chain of naval and air bases in some of which, thanks to his advantages of prior preparation, the enemy has been consolidating his position for months. If the offensive is to serve its purpose it must be continued relentlessly, though perhaps by stages, in spite of all difficulties and losses involved. It is in particular a condition of successful, progress that the Allies should be able, as their offensive extends, to establish hud equip aerodromes from which shorebased aircraft will be able to play their all-important part in further, combined operations as these become practicable'. Taking account, amongst other things, of the likelihood of a Japanese attack on Russia,'the attacks now opened by the Allies in the Pacific may well be the beginning, though of necessity an arduous and costly beginning, .of very much greater things to follow.