SOLOMONS AREA

Evening Star, Issue 24324, 13 October 1942, Page 3

SOLOMONS AREA

CRUCIAL BATTLE SHAPING NEW JAPANESE PUSH EXPECTED (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY, October 12. American naval experts believe that the most crucial land battle in the Pacific since the tall of the Judies and Malaya is shaping in the Solomons. They'explain that Japan’s determination to reinforce her troops on Guadalcanal. regardless of losses, shows that she hopes to concentrate sufficient ground forces to march down the island against the American airfield. The Washington United Press correspondent says Japanese landings are taking place on the same side of the mountains where the American positions are established, and therefore the Japanese are probably considering a southward push by a scries of pincer actions. Naval observers, who emphasise the importance of the South-east Solomons in protecting the Allied supply routes to Australia and New Zealand, do not attempt to minimise the blow to our Pacific strategic position should the Japanese push succeed. Mr Joseph Harsch, who until recently was the 1 Christian Science Monitor ’ war correspondent in the South-west Pacific, declares that the American operations in the Solomons were distorted during the early phases, and the public was led to believe that this was a great counter-attack to sweep the Japanese back through the Indies and the Philippines. He says reliable sources declare that the marines cannot hold out indefinitely unless they are substantially reinforced quickly. The ‘ Sydney Morning Herald’s ’ war correspondent, who recently visited Guadalcanal, says that large reinforcements have arrived there, considerably easing the position, which more than once in the past seven weeks has been “ touch and go.”