MOVING TOWARD A CLIMAX

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 22, 21 October 1942, Page 5

MOVING TOWARD A CLIMAX

Guadalcanal Struggle AMERICAN WARSHIPS ON SCENE (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) SYDNEY, October 20. Operations in the Solomon Islands are now moving toward a climax. Evidence that United States naval units are now within striking distance of the Japanese fleet is found in the latest communique from Washington, received today. The United States Navy Department announced that American surface ships effectively bombarded the Japanese on northwestern Guadalcanal, in the Solomons, on Saturday morning. Japanese surface forces on Saturday night shelled American positions. On Sunday, when 40 Japanese planes made an attack over Guadalcanal, no fewer than 19 were shot down by Grumman Wildcats (Navy fighters). Though the two naval forces are operating in the same waters (the main American and-Japanese shore positions are hardly more than 20 miles apart), there are no reports yet of any direct clash.

WIDE REPERCUSSIONS Battle Of Guadalcanal MELBOURNE TO MOSCOW (Received October 20, 11.55 p.m.) NEW TORE, October 20. ‘'The Japanese attack on Guadalcanal must be considered against the background of the war in the whole Pacific theatre,” says the “HeraldTribune’s” military . analyst, Major Fielding Eliot. “Very great issues depend on the outcome of the fight for the airfield and one small island. If the Japanese were successful, they would reap great advantages. “1. They would regain considerable freedom of action in the immediate Solomons area, for we would then be forced to retreat to our nearest air base in the New Hebrides. “2. The Japanese operations in New Guinea would be aided, by the ability to concentrate larger forces there. “3. The Japanese would be enabled to detach naval and air forces for an assault on our great trans-Paciflc line of communications on which the security of Australia largely depends. Air Power. “In estimating the effect of the Pacific operations the factor of ' air power is, perhaps, the most important. The effective use the Japanese have made of their rather limited air » force has given us an exaggerated idea of the Japanese air (power, and certainly some published statements of the Japanese plane production far exceed the facts. “Japan’s planes are divided between the army and navy. Admiral Hart recently noted that all the Japanese planes encountered -.round the south China Sea were navy,planes, and the same thing is probably true in the Solomons. This suggests that the navy has the first call on Japanese plane production. “Thus the fighting in the Solomons affects a Japanese attack against Si--1 beria, since the army obviously could not hope for a successful campaign against the Russians without sufficient planes, but if the Japanese regain Guadalcanal they could release planes for the army on the Siberian frontier. “Therefore, the influence of the fighting on Guadalcanal may be felt in Moscow, and perhaps on the borders of India. This is indeed a global war.”