JAPANS MISTAKE

Waikato Times, Volume 130, Issue 21688, 26 March 1942, Page 5

JAPANS MISTAKE

“WRITING ON THE WALL” VIEWS OF MR CURTIN DEFENCE OF AUSTRALIA (United Press As*n.—Elec. TeL copyrigM) CANBERRA, March 25 Addressing returned sailors and soldiers of the Imperial League last nignt, the Prime Minister, Mr J. Curtin, said he considered that Japan had discovered that blitz tactics would not enable her to swallow indefinitely one country after another. The rapidity with which she had moved since her initial success on December 7, he said, could no longer be maintained. It could be said on the highest authority that the enemy had reached the stage where the future held increasing disappointments and retreats. Mr Curtin t added that there had been too much talk by armchair strategists about the way the offensive against Japan should be conducted. It would be well for Germany, Italy and Japan to realise that they were a long way from dictating peace terms. Indeed, the writing was on the wall for those men who thought they could rule the world by force of arms. Japan’s Probable Tactics The Sydney Daily Herald adopts' the course of discussing Australia’s defence by publishing answers from its aviation, naval, and military correspondents to a series of questions, says the London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. The aviation correspondent says: “The Japanese probably will use airborne troops, whose first job will be to capture northern airfields which might help the enemy to make coast landings. Airfields, ports, railways and roads will be the main bombing targets. Attempts will be made especially to interrupt army traffic by rail from Brisbane to Cairns. “The capital cities should escape bombing unless the enemy can establish bases fairly far south. Australia will need all the up-to-date fighters America can send her, and a strong force of long-range four-en-gined bombers.” The naval correspondent of the paper says: “Sea superiority will not enable the Japanese to land wherever they like, but Sydney and other coastal cities could be attacked from the sea.” The military correspondent says: “«If land battles develop they will be a cross between those in Russia and those in Libya, ranging over a wide front, but localised) near the few vital communications. “A strong force of tanks would probably be decisive in any localised battle, but the wider-ranging activity might be hampered by supply difficulties. Existing rail communications favour the attackers rather than the defenders. If the Japanese obtained a foothold in North Australia it would not be an easy task to drive them out as long as they held command of the sea.” Trevention of Invasion The military correspondent of the Yorkshire Post says: “Using air power, as General MacArthur is doing to break up enemy bases and concentrations, is doing much to prevent the invasion of Australia. Mobility is General MacArthur’s keynote, not only for defence, but for the forward operations on which his mind is set. “He is dictating the area on which the enemy must concentrate. This extends across the Pacific far from Australia, along the innumerable islands which stud the ocean like a field of maritime pillboxes between the Tasman and the Equator. The threat to India lessens as Allied strategy unfolds. It seems that Japan is now about to be made to fight for her Pacific holdings.”