AFTER DEBACLE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 287, 2 September 1942, Page 5

AFTER DEBACLE

Allied Conjecture “SURGE OF FIERCE JOY” (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.). (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September I'. The Japanese forces trapped in the corner of the northern peninsula on Milne Bay are being systematically and rapidly exterminated by Australian troops. Higlf officers do not expect a surrender of the remaining enemy troops and believe they will offer bitter resistance to the last. Commentators express surprise at the evacuation of the Japanese forces, presumably by the enemy warships which left the bay on Sunday. It is the invariable Japanese military policy to fight to the death against any odds in order to gain an objective. Some observers connect the disappearance of the warships with the Battle for the Solomons and believe the ships may have joined a great enemy naval concentration which will mate a bid to shatter the Allied fleet and land reoccupying forces on the six islands now held by the Americans. However, whatever the reason, the Japanese departure from Milne Bay is an important strategic gain, as well as a tremendous moral victory. Slaughter From Air.

Mention of the capture of tanks is the first official revelation that the Japanese had landed armoured fighting vehicles in New Guinea. The use of tanks emphasizes that the enemy move on Milno Bay was intended to be a major holding operation. The considerable part played by the Allied air forces in the Milne Bay operations is now being revealed. Australian troops who on Sunday trudged through heavy mud and dense jungle to the Kobule mission, where the enemy made his initial landing on Wednesday, found only one live Japanese. He had been seriously wounded, and has since died. Scores of dead Japanese were • found by our advancing troops—evidence of the success of the continued strafing by Kittyhawks flown by Australian pilots.

The Australian land forces also found abandoned tanks which were used by the Japanese for night-fight-ing. They protected enemy machinegunners who approached the Australians’ prepared positions with each tank, and then the tanks turned glaring lights on our troops while the machineguns opened fire at short •° New Japanese Move Likely.

The victory of Milne Bay has been described as “sending a surge of fierce joy throughout Australia/’ The “Sydney Morning Herald” says: “Transcending even the relief at the removal of the new enemy threat .to Port Moresby and thus to the mainland is a feeling of stern satisfaction that the measures which the Japanese, arrogant and pitiless in their conquests, have meted out to a succession of unprepared opponents have at last been dealt out to one of their landing forces in New Guinea.” It is regarded as certain that the Japanese will throw new forces into the New Guinea struggle. Many observers suggest that the present fighting in New Guinea and the Solomons throws into bold relief the need for a unified command m the south-west Pacific. Mr. Byron Darnton, the “New York Times” war correspondent, emphasizes the weakness of the system, under which General MacArthur and Vice-Admiral Ghormley operate as commanders in adjacen areas “I do not say whether it should be General MacArthur or Admiral Ghormley, who receives the unified command,” he says, “but somebody should.” VALUE OB’ SECRECY CANBERRA, August 31. The Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin, said the success at Milne Bay was gratifying, but emphasised that controversy about the military operations must be avoided. Surprise was essential to success, he said, and controversy often destroyed that element. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Fadden, said that the success was the “most heartening news we have had for a long time.”