GREAT NAVAL CLIMAX

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 193, 13 May 1944, Page 7

GREAT NAVAL CLIMAX

Prospect In War Against Japanese POST-HITLER NEMESIS LONDON, May 11. “We are eating away against the Japanese strongholds now and are doing a fine job, but that is not the wav the Pacific war will be won,” said, Admiral Sir William James, Chief of Naval Information. "After the defeat of Germany we will move the fleet to the East. With the combined vast resources of the British and American navies I cannot see how the Pacific war will not be won sooner than many people tjiink. "It will be a great maritime war. There will be a battle, a fleet action similar, to that of the last war. It will also be a great aircraft-carrier war. Only half of the United States Army s ground forces will be needed to defeat Japan after Germany’s collapse, asserted Mr. Harold Moulton, head of the Brookings Institute, which conducts factfinding inquiries for United States busi* ness concerns. He told the Senate’s Postwar Planning Committee that he based his estimate of the ground forces needed to beat Japan on the assumption that the United States armed forces totalled 11,000,000. He added that he believed collapse would come at the end of this year, and that ‘‘the war in the Orient will be over in 1945.” The American Army air forces in the Pacific and Asia destroyed 4887 enemy planes and lost 1414 planes from December 7. 1941, to March 7. 1944, said the American Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, when addressing a Press conference. Enemy Reinforced.

He added that the enemy was sending some new air strength into the newlydeveloped bases on the, western end of New Guinea and the nearby Seouten Islands, but that Allied planes were turning their attention to these regions. American planes had dropped 7730 tons of bombs since February 3 on Rabaul, where the enemy air installations had been rendered useless. . The Americans had killed 31 iO Japanese and taken prisoner 158 Japanese in the Admiralty Islands, and killed 1502 and taken prisoner 290 at Holhindia and Aitape. It was noteworthy that Increasing numbers of Japanese were surrendering. . ~ The lack of important moves in (lie Pacific in the past few months probably was the lull preceding major events, said Tokio official radio. The .Americans were preparing for an offensive from the Aleutians, where they had built four large air bases and have several hundred planes, from five to six infantry divisions, including paratroops and airborne troops. The radio added that the Japanese troops in the Northern Kurile Islands were ready for these offensives. The Aleutians would one of these days become a major war theatre.