Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1942. SPEEDING UP AGAINST JAPAN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1942. SPEEDING UP AGAINST JAPAN.

4> . lie was reported in a cablegram from Montreal yesterday, the Washington correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” Mr Joseph Harsch, spoke of the possibility of a public campaign in the United States for speeding up the war against Japan, but addedthat decisions may already have been taken which will make such a campaign unnecessary. . It is perhaps not without its bearing on the present situation in the Pacific that only a month or two ago those who direct the strategy of the United Nations were facing in silence widespread demands, for the opening of a second front in Europe. An answer to these demands was given eventually in the great combined operations in North Africa which now are universally accepted as the prelude and key to offensive action on the widest scale against the Axis, by sea, land and air, in Southern Europe and probably Western Europe as well. Much as the Allies have built up their forces in the Pacific, particularly their air forces, and heavily as they have checked the enemy at many points, their total operations oil this side of the world still wear the aspect of a holding campaign. It is obvious, that action on. a far greater scale than has yet been attempted is needed to bring Japan to defeat. No valid reason appears, however, for doubting that the Allies are determined to use against’i Japan all the fou.ee that is available, as soon as it is available.

Some groups in the United States, Mr Harsch says, “contend that Japan’s economic and industrial condition is improving, except in shipbuilding and plane.production. ” Surely, however, it is precisely upon these excepted particulars that Japan would be concentrating her main industrial efforts if her position were in fact improving. Shortage of shipping, accentuated very seriously by the operations of Allied aircraft, submarines and other naval forces, is her deadliest weakness, from both the military and general economic standpoint. It is well established, too, that she is suffering heavy and disproportionate losses of aircraft.

Another cablegram yesterday said that the Japanese so far had held back most of their modern warships and had not yet fully deployed their fleet. It appears to be true that Japan has held back her newest battleships, including several 45,000ton vessels, if these have been, completed and commissioned. On the other hand it is estimated that she has lost nearly all her aircraft-carriers, about two-thirds of her cruisers and a considerable proportion of her destroyers—losses which affect very materially the total effective power of her navy.

No one doubts the desirability, as soon as it is practicable, of action on the lines advocated by the “New York Times” military writer, Mr Hanson Baldwin—additional drives against Japan eastward from China and "westward from Hawaii, the reconquest of Burma, with the consequent reopening of the Burma Road, and so on. There is no reason to doubt, however, that action on these lines will be taken as soon as it becomes practicable. It certainly may be taken for granted that when the Allies strike in any one of these or other ways they will do so without warning.

At the stage that has been reached, Japan has little enough reason to be satisfied witli the outlook. She has invaded a great deal of Allied territory, but in a series of battles has suffered heavy if not crippling losses of naval and merchant ships and aircraft. As her Prime Minister, General To jo, has just admitted, she is fighting in “adverse conditions” in the Solomons and the position is not more hopeful from her standpoint in the savage conflict in which the Allies are now far advanced towards victory in Eastern New Guinea.

Incidentally, the Allied operations in North Africa and the great counter-offensive in which the Russians are following up their grimly heroic defence of Stalingrad, have decisively made an end of enemy hopes of a junction of European and Asiatic Axis forces being effected by way of the Middle East. They have at. the same time accentuated the tremendous risks Japan would take in any attempt to extend her aggression, notably bv ah. attack on Siberia.

Perhaps the most significant and most realistic passage in General Tojo’s latest speech is that in which he said that day and night, without relaxation, Japai'f'.was preparing for air raids on her home territory! lie has made other statements which indicate that he hopes for the retention and defence of much of the territory that Japan has invaded. Japan’s prospects of holding these areas, once the Allies have had time to develop and deploy their full striking power,, evidently, however, are very poor indeed.