NEW SEA BATTLE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20916, 16 October 1942, Page 5

NEW SEA BATTLE

MAY BE DECISIVE JAPS. SUFFER HEAVILY AIR POWER'S VITAL PART (By Telegraph—Press Assn.— Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent,) (2.40 p.m.) SYDNEY, Oct. 15 “The continuing air and naval battle in the Solomons has already in the aggregate begun 1.0 assume the dimensions of an action which may prove decisive in the Pacific war_ at sea.” says the Sydney Morning Herald, commenting on the latest cheering news from the south-west Pacific fronts. Australian war news analysts see the battle for the Solomons as one of attrition, with the Japanese losses in ships and aircraft now amounting to a total which must prove gravely embarrassing to the enemy. It is pointed out that recent, reports of the south-west Pacific actions_ revealed the existence of American bases in the New Hebrides and Fiji, considerably strengthening the Allied nosition in this theatre. While no

information of the size or type of these bases has been given, both American and Australian observers regard their now officially-acknow-ledged existence as proof of Allied determination .to pursue a vigorous offensive policy against the Japanese. A Washington report states that the Espiritu Santa Island in the New Hebrides is an air base which some air force units assisting the Marines to capture Guadalcanal- used as a jumping-off place. “Baffled and Crippled”

Emphasising -again the great importance of land-based air power, in which supremacy has lain so decisively with the Allies, the Sydney Morning Herald says: “The initiative which the Japanese have striven to assert at sea and on land has been constantly baffled and crippled by the Allies' initiative in the air, a revelation which should assure the Solomdns battle of a leading place in the future study of amphibious tactics in war.” The enemy’s unwillingness to risk a major fleet action, 'in which carriers and battleships would participate, is generally commented upon. It is pointed out that attrition fighting into which the Japanese have been led by' the Americans has already cost the Japanese losses equivalent to those of a major fleet action fought in vain. But observers agree that the Japanese have still substantial sea power available and rriust either risk a battle or admit defeat in the contest in which the stakes are much more than the Solomons. “If our Allies have not yet fully succeeded in getting the enemy, navally speaking, where they want him,” says the Sydney Morning Herald, “at least: they have so far outwitted, outmanoeuvred and out-fought him in the shrewdest skin game that this war has yet produced.” “The stake for Allied victory in the Solomons is more than relative security for Australia and New Zealand, and their supply lines from Ainerica,” says the Sydney Daily Telegraph. “If the Japanese lose the bitter fight for these strategic islands, the Allied defence line in the southwest Pacific will be advanced to a new

line running from Port Moresby to Guadalcanal-. This would outflank the Japanese base at Rabaul and probably force the enemy’s main concentrations back to Truk, 1000 miles to the north.”