NOTES ON WAR NEWS

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXXI, Issue 9755, 8 April 1942, Page 3

NOTES ON WAR NEWS

AMERICAN HELP TO AUSTRALIA 1i1.,: ;— — ' . recent criticism " - EFFECT ON OPINION IN U.S.A. Considerable importance must be attached to Mr Hanson Baldwin’s criticism of American help to Australia, in the “New York Times, not so much for tht reasons of grand strategy he advances—for these are wide open to argument—but because of the effects of the article on American opinion, which is much more sensitive to the observations of columnists and commentators than public opinion is in any other part of the world. There seems little doubt from other comments, notably by Colonel Knox, that Mr Baldwin represents a not insignificant body of military opinion which holds that the principal job is to defeat the Axis in Europe and that everything else should be subordinated to that purpose. Similar views are also strongly held in Britain, and the concentration of military strength there and in the Middle East, together with the best part of the Navy and Air Force, is in keeping with those views. Britain’s weakness in the Far East, resulting in the loss of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Southern Burma, was due to the same policy. In the main, so far as Britain herself was concerned, the policy, strongly defended by Mr Churchill, was right, though its execution was faulty in both Malaya and Burma. Sounder judgment and quicker decision might well have saved the Army in Malaya Singapore) to fight elsewhere. It is correct military policy, if it is impossible to be strong everywhere, to choose the vital spots to defend and let the others go in the meantime. It was recognised before the present war that Britain would find it difficult to defend the Empire in the Far East, and that British communities there, as far as possible, i should try to defend themselves. Unfortunately, the implications of such a view were neither in India nor in ! the Sotuh-west Pacific followed to 1 .their logical conclusion in the estab- ' lishment of a system of self-defence. 3 Instead, there has been a hurried im- 1 provision of defensive measures in an < emergency.

MR BALDWIN’S OPINION

“Viewed in the cold, hard light of strategic reality,” Mr Baldwin is quoted as saying, “Australia, except to the Australians, is not strategically vital to the cause of the United Nations. . . Militarily and strategically, in this struggle for the world, Australia is an outpost, and one that could be lost without losing the war. Even in the strategy of the Pacific Australia and New Zealand do not play the principal roles.” Nothing appears in the cable message to prove these statements except a suggestion of the “shipping difficulties” in aiding Australia. Mr Baldwin is said to contend that “Hawaii, China, India. Burma, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands or the Russian bases in the Pacific offer better possibilities as offensive springboards than Australia.”

BETTER BASES?

Take, first o£ all, the places suggested by Mr Baldwin as preferable j to Australia. Their only advantage | is that they are all nearer to Japan | than is Australia, but this advantage | is discounted by drawbacks. Hawaii I is a good naval base, but no base for | the assembling of a large army and , the shipping required to transport it. to the scene of the offensive. China l is unavailable for an offensive just now because Japan already holds practically all the coast of China and a wide belt inland. India is separated by a huge mass of continental Asia from Japan and by seas over! which Japan has almost complete control. Burma is not worth mentioning as a base except for supplies to China, and as to that the Burma Road is already crippled by Japanese occupation of Rangoon. Alaska and the Aleutian Islands will be useful as bases for an attack on Northern Japan when the time comes, but they and waters round them are subject j to cold winters. No Russian bases j are available, unless and until wav j breaks out between Russia and Japan | AUSTRALIA’S VALUE j Thus none of these fulfils the re- j quirements of a base for a large-scale offensive. Australia does. The is- i land-continent is situated due south of Japan and the Japanese conquests 1 in the South-west Pacific. It can furnish a considerable portion of the war material, supplies and munitions,as well as a big share—perhaps the lion’s share —of the man-power. New Zealand, to a smaller degree, is similarly useful. Both countries have many harbours suitable for naval use, as well as an abundance of airfields. They have also the advantage of being beyond range of air attack by land-sited aeroplanes. WIIAT LOSS WOULD MEAN If Australia and New Zealand fell into the hands of Japan, the Japanese could present the United Nations with a complete naval, air and land barrier between the Pacific and Indian Oceans from Kamchatka to Stewart Island, practically from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Japan would then be in possession of the whole eastern shores of the Indian Ocean from Rangoon to Albany. No Allied shipping could pass from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and the Indian Ocean would hot be safe for Allied supplies to India and the Middle East. America’s frontier in the Pacific would be Hawaii, for nothing could save the Philippines if Australia and the neighbouring Pacific islands fell. Virtually, the effect in the Western Pacific would be the tame as it would be in the Western Atlantic if the Axis gained control of Africa from Gibraltar to the Cape.

In fact, there are few more vital strategic bases for the United Nations to-day than Australia and New Zealand. , ;