FORCE NOT YET AT MAXIMUM

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 23, 22 October 1942, Page 5

FORCE NOT YET AT MAXIMUM

Japanese Attack MORE U.S. LAND-BASED PLANES (By Telegraph. —Press Assn. —Copyright.) WASHINGTON, October 21. “The Solomons struggle is still a good stiff, hard fight,” the Secretary of Navy, Colonel Knox, told a Press conference. “In my judgment the Japanese have by no means as yet exercised their maximum force.” Colonel Knox said that he had nothing to add to the most recent communique announcing that American warships had made a sudden reappearance off the Solomons. He said communiques were being issued as rapidly as information was received. The Secretary of the Navy indicated that land-based aeroplanes would play a much greater part in the naval activity in the Solomons. Asked if he would comment upon the number involved, he replied that such information could not be disclosed, but he could say that the number of land-based planes used by the navy was steadily increasing. Naval Pressure. The Commander-in-Chief of the United States Navy, Admiral King, in a speech in New York, said: “Though America is still fighting a two-ocean war, with a one-ocean, navy, we took the offensive at Tulagi in August, and the Japanese fear and resent it. “A second-ocean navy is well on the way this year. But there will not be any miracles in this war and no inventors to produce machines to knock out the Japanese and their planes. There is no cheap way of winning this war.” Admiral King added that returning from the Solomons assured him that all the services there were “in the ditch, and digging together.”