Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1944. PROGRESS AGAINST JAPAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 May 1944, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY , MAY 23, 1944. PROGRESS AGAINST JAPAN

Uie moment attention very naturally is concentrated on Italy, where the Allies, with French and Polish troops acquitting themselves valiantly in comradeship with those 01. the United States, Britain and the Dominions, are making most promising headway in operations which are linked up, as the Moscow newspaper “ Pravda.” has said, with the lort hcoming invasion of. Wetsern Europe. Clearly as developments of commanding importance are thus taking shape and being brought into prospect, however, late events in several areas in the war against Japan are also very noteworthy and ol good promise. Within the last few days American, and Chinese forces, commanded by General Stilwell, have made a rapid advance through difficult country to the Japanese base of Myitkyina, in north-eastern Burma —an advance facilitated greatly by the earlier landing behind the enemy lines of the airborne forces at first commanded by the late General Wingate and more recently by General Lentaignc. At the same time, Chinese 1 forces have made considerable progress towards the same area from Western Yunnan. How far these co-ordinated Allied operations are likely to be hindered and perhaps arrested lor a time by Ihe monsoonal rains is a little uncertain. The general position indicated, however, is that the Allies have made important progress, not only towards reopening land communications with China, but. towards safeguarding by a. wider margin the air communications with that country which more than rival the Burma Road in importance. Other very recent events of outstanding importance in tin 1 war against Japan are the devastating attacks made by both carrier-borne and land-based bombers on the Japanese-occupied naval base of Surabaya, in Java and the American occupation of Wakde Island, off the coast of Dutch New Guinea, 1.25 miles west of Hoilandia. Military observers in Washington, according to one of yesterday’s cablegrams, believe that after the capture of Wakde Island the Allies, will be ready to invade Halmaheira, in the Dutch East Indies, “the last major land barrier to the back door of the Philippines,” and Vice-Admiral John Greenslade is reported to have said, in a speech at San Francisco, that : — General MacArthur will continue moving westward along the fringe of the Dutch possessions. Meanwhile Admiral Nimitz will drive straight across the Pacific and eventually, without the immediate necessity of clearing the Dutch East Indies, we may be able to support the Chinese effort by direct contact on the eastern Asiatic mainland. Not very long ago the idea of breaking the Japanese blockade of. the Chinese coast without first ousting the Japanese from their holdings in the Dutch East Indies and elsewhere in SouthEast Asia might have been regarded as fantastic. In view, however, of the enterprise and success with which the Allies are developing bypassing and long-distance attacks in the Pacific, and taking account also of the actual and prospective developments in Burma and other parts of the area of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s South-East Asia command, the outlook in the war against Japan is changing rapidly for the better.