NAVAL STRUGGLE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 21, 20 October 1942, Page 5

NAVAL STRUGGLE

Historic Solomons Arena

PROBING OBSCURITY (By Telegraph—Press Assn— Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.)

(Received October 19, 11.20 p.m.) SYDNEY, October 19.

In the obscurity of official reticence and the confusion of conflicting opinion among the world’s war news analysts, one prime fact stands out in the battle for the Solomons. It is that the Japanese are intent upon pouring into this “war crucible” the maximum strength of ships, planes, and men which they are able to muster.

Anything less than complete victory for Japan will carry a tacit implication of eventual defeat in the Pacific war. It will be an admission that Japan’s power by sea and air is no longer capable of sustaining, still less expanding, her Pacific empire. In her efforts to win back the Solomons, Japan has withdrawn strength from her haain bases in the central Pacific, probably from the Netherlands Edst Indies, and apparently from New Guinea. That she was unable to maintain her New Guinea offensive while preparing for the blow in the Solomon Islands is in itself an admission of comparative weakness. Question of Price.

There have been few war observers who believed that the American grip on the south-eastern Solomons was complete and secure, and it has been widely held that Japan could retake the islands —if she was prepared to pay a price sufficiently high. The gravest danger to the Allies’ broad strategy in the Pacific is perhaps less that islands should toe retaken than that the price of their recapture should be not sufficiently high in irreplaceable ships and aircraft.

A decisive victory for the Allies in the naval battle which, if it is not already joined, must almost certainly be looming would.mark the real start of the much talked of "island-hopping" offensive against Japan. By taking the southern Solomons, the Americans merely positioned themselves for such an offensive. While Japan may have won local air supremacy in the Solomons (though this is still in dispute), it has been . gained only at the expense of other theatres. On the broader Pacific front air superiority now lies with the United Nations. Japan's sea losses in this war of attrition have been heavy, and may well be an eventual decisive factor. Among 368 Japanese vessels claimed to have been sunk during the war, Mr. William Fieisher, a former editor of the Japan “Advertiser,” lists six aircraft-carriers, 24 cruisers, 45 destroyers, 29 submarines, 93 transports, 12 supply ships, and 99 merchant ships. Further heavy losses in the Solomons naval battle, unless these were compensated for by a crippling defeat of the American fleet, would put Japan definitely on the defensive. "Too Successful.” The first aim is the double strategy motivating the American occupation of the south-eastern Solomons was to break the keys.toiie of Japanese encirclement in the south-west Pacific and protect the Allied supply line. The second was to draw the Japanese Navy into a position where its valuable units would become vulnerable to attack by Allied ships and aircraft. “At the moment the second objective seems to have been too successful,” according to tbe war commentator of the “Christian Science Monitor,” “but not till word comes from the silent United States Fleet will it be possible to tell whether the Japanese have run into a trap or whether their naval striking force has again been underestimated.” The correspondent adds: “The appearance of Japanese battleships off the Solomons has given rise to the question, Where are the big United States battlewagons? Two factors affect the answer. United States naval men still believe that a full-dress engagement between capital ships is a distinct possibility, and thus American ships must remain where they may best serve for such an event. Alternatively, knowing the Japanese penchant for economy of force, the United States may have decided that, the Solomons could be defended and reinforced by heavy cruisers alone. “But there is no reason to suppose that United States reinforcement of the capital ship strength is impossible.” Air supremacy, perhaps depending on the American ability to hold the Guadalcanal airfield and maintain it in commission, is likely to influence tbe outcome of any major naval battle. But it is this battle which will decide the whole future course of the Pacific war. Until the question of Pacific naval supremacy has been decided the course of the war in this theatre must remain incalculable and liable to sudden upsets.