LONG, HARD STRUGGLE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 10, 7 October 1943, Page 5

LONG, HARD STRUGGLE

NEW YORK, October 5.

Optimistic predictions that Germany and Japan are about to crumble arc not based on solid fact, paid the Under-Sec-retary of War, Mr. Patterson, addressing the C. 1.0. United Automobile Workers Union. He added that General Marshall and other military leaders had given as their considered opinion that a long, hard struggle was ahead. So far as the United States was concerned, casualties 'had been low compared with those of the Allies. The Russians had borne the brunt of German power for more than two years at the cost of 10,000,000 Russian soldiers killed, wounded, nnd captured. The time was nt hand when we would bo striking heavy blows and carrying an increasing part of the burden. The United States Army and Navy had done a great- job in the South-west Pacific, but though American submarines had cut large and important holes in the Japanese supply lines Tokio still sat at the top of a great sweep of territory undamaged, busy at war production and so far fairly safe. It looked like a long war in the Pacific. Air and sea power could win it, but not in a hurry. Japan had 3,000,000 men under arms, and could call up 20 more divisions if they were needed. Tile Japanese Fleet still dominated the Western Pacific from Kamchatka to the Marshall Islands and continued to be a major obstacle to our effective land and sea operations. The Americans’ main advantage in the war was the ability to produce weapons. To accomplish Germany's and Japan’s defeat would demand the wholehearted, single-minded effort of every man and woman in the country.