PACIFIC SURVEY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 284, 29 August 1942, Page 7

PACIFIC SURVEY

Situation Considered Satisfactory

RESTRICTED U.S. AID (Received August 28, 11.35 p.m.) NEW YORK, August 27.

“The Pacific situation is satisfactory in view of all the facts, declares Joseph Harsch, “Christian Science Monitor" correspondent, who recently returned from covering the war in the south-west Pacific. The front was being held with not very substantial American assistance.

The Allies were a long way from beating Japan, however, and still faced a desperate fight till America was able to divert her major offensive strength to the Pacific, but they retained their main positions and resisted the enemy attempts to cut communications and seize lines of re-entry. The Japanese had not succeeded in shaking lied strategy of concentrating on Hitler, while holding Japan. Mr. Harsch’s chief reason for finding the Pacific situation satisfactory is that the Japanese have not been allowed to advance beyond the lines established by American military councils years ago. He reveals that before the attack on Pear) Harbour, British, American and Canadian forces were being moved in the Pacific into a buffer area between the American and Japanese spheres, but the enemy moved too quickly to permit completion of the plan and seized the I hihppmes after a resistance almost exactly equal to Washington’s anticipations. Malaya’s Fall.

“The American leaders did not, however, expect the easy fall of Malaya and Singapore,” he says, “but London after the war may reveal that it anticipated these losses and had Intended to withdraw the Malayan army from Singapore to defend Burma. The final disastrous attempt to defend Singapore cost 100,000 men, and may turn out to be an improvization forced on London by the Australian GovernHarsch believes that Java might have been held with 200 good fighters and 150 first-class bombers,, but the Dutch possessed only a few obsolete planes purchased before the outbreak of the European war. They did not receive any Lease-Lend planes, from America. These began to arrive in Australia only after the fall of Java. Mr. Harsch says the loss of Burma is not a vital blo-w to the Allies, since Burma forms part of the no-man's-land outside the vital Allied bastions. Mr. Harsch also sets out the full facts of the restricted American assistance in the south-west Pacific theatre. He confesses a sense of guilt that his dispatches, like those of other American correspondents, emphasized the cheerful aspects of the war in the Pacific. He says that he now offered the real facts by way of atonement America, he says, was following the master strategy of concentrating her efforts on Europe. The forces available for the Pacific were extremely small for what had to be accomplished. Considering, this, the success achieved had -been magnificent.