CRITICISM BY MR CURTIN

Waikato Times, Volume 132, Issue 22009, 10 April 1943, Page 6

CRITICISM BY MR CURTIN

STRONG DENUNCIATION LOST OPPORTUNITIES (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) CANBERRA, April 9 “Let us hope that the Pacific will not become the front where the front where the United Nations lost the war,” said the Prime Minister, Mr J. Curtin, in a special statement supplementing that of General MacArthur on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Fall of Bataan. Mr Curtin’s statement virtually was a strong denunciation of the United Nations’ plan of the “holding” war in the Pacific and was the Prime Minister’s first criticism of Allied grand strategy since the Casablanca conference in January decided on a “Beat Hitler First” policy. The statement continued: “The anniversary* of the fall of Bataan is a sad reminded that the Pacific has become a front of lost opportunities. The United Nations have successively failed to establish a rallying point in the Philippines, at Singapore, in the Netherlands East Indies and at Rabaul. The flood of aggression has flowed to the verges of the last main base in the South-west Pacific. “In their advance the Japanese have been highly vulnerable to counter-attacks and golden opportunities have been missed to deal them some heavy blows. As a result they have been allowed to consolidate and their defeat will now be a longer and harder task. Australia has shown ready willingness to co-operate in other war theatres at considerable risk to her own security. Others have decreed that Germany must be beaten first. “We must, therefore, exert every endeavour to ensure that the Pacific does not become the lost front. Bataan and Singapore stand as warnings to the United Nations. They have a symbolism for the future too significant to be forgotten.”