MORE WARPLANES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 1, 2 January 1943, Page 5

MORE WARPLANES

WANTED FOR OFFENSIVE IN PACIFIC GROWING DIVISION OF OPINION (Special Australian Correspondent—N.Z.P.A. (Recd. 9.15 p.m.) Sydney, Jan. 1

From 400 to 500 more warplanes in the South-west Pacific would quicken tremendously the Allies, offensive against Japan. An appeal for the immediate dive: sion ol a greater proportion of tn United Nations’ air, naval and Jan strengths to the Pacific war zone . believed to lie behind Mr. Curtin public statement pointing out ti. dangers of allowing Japan to consoli date her new empire. Recently the flow of urgently needed supplies to this war theatre is reported unofficially to have diminished steadily. The Australian Prime Minister’s statement was made when he was pressed for comment on a plea by the American magazine United States News for “an. attack now with all possible resources to prevent Japan entrenching herself to fight a long defensive war.”

“The United States News added that behind the Japanese present programme of industrial expansion was a well-laid plan for another war still to come. America should supply men and machines to launch an offensive which would ruin Japan’s plans, both for this war and the war to come. Failure to do so was to allow Japan to buy cheaply the time needed to oppose the United Nations in a long and costly war.

It is clear tl "e is within the United States a growing division of opinion on the global war strategy. Military correspondents have been urging increasingly the dangers of the “Beat Hitler First” strategy, and this is widely believed to reiiect the views of certain American naval circles, who have always considered the Japanese our Number One enemy. However, their views do not appear to have resulted in any change of the war plan. A strong reason lor the Supreme Command's “defensive offensive” policy in the Pacific is sound belief that any large-scale assault against Japan must involve attacks from the Asiatic mairUgind, which will be possible only when the Mediterranean is cleared as a supply route to India, when such attacks can be launched. Hence the essential priority nature oi the North African offensive.

It is also felt that it would be catastrophically dangerous to divert the United Nations’ major effort to the Pacific, since this might allow Hitler to consolidate his European defences and perhaps defeat Russia, thus throwing the whole Allied war strategy into the discard.

Mr. Curtin’s statement, however, is not a plea for a complete reversal of the Allied war strategy but for its mild revision. He expresses the views of Australians who believe that even a comparatively small diversion oi strength to the Pacific, in no way effecting operations in other theatres, would swing the delicately poised situation in the Allies’ favour and permit the early capture of areas

which the Japanese are now busy making into strong-points.

The Sydney Herald to-day comments: "Gains north from Australia which removed the actual hostilities nearer to the Equator would free tens of thousands of Australian and New'Zealand servicemen from what is rather precautionary than active service, and so go some way to solving the manpower problems that threaten to become acute in 1943. An advance which meant the retaking of rubbergrowing and tin - producing areas would be of the utmost consequence to all the United Nations, the efficiency of whose fight against Hitler or anybody else will largely depend on the continued availability of adequate raw materials-”