TIDE OF PACIFIC WAR

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 240, 12 October 1942, Page 3

TIDE OF PACIFIC WAR

STRONG GENERAL FEELING. AXIS FCRCES HELD EVERYWHERE.

PA.

SYDNEY, Oct. 10.

Despite the Japanese threats to the Amercan positions in the Solomons, a strong feeling is generally evident among observers fcoth in Australia and the United States that the tide of the Pacific war is now turning slowly in favour of the Allies. Australia's Prime Minister, Mr C'urtin, indicated that this optimistic assessmeni> applied also to the global war when he told Parliament that it was his belief the Axis was not making progress on any front. The cause for which the Allied Nations were fighting was being gradually vindicated. "Simultaneously with the steady advance of the Australians in New Guinea, the Americans have already beaten off new attempts to expel ] them from the Solomons and have retained marked air superiority, destroying more than 200 Japanese pianes at a cost of less than 40 of their own," writes the Sydney Morning Herald's military correspondent to-day. "The Americans have also turned the tables against the Japanese at the other end of the Pacific. Their forees in the Aleutians are defmitely closing in on Japan." LAST DEFENSIVE YEAR. This year, 1942, is the last defensive year for the United Nations,

write Major-General Feilding Eliot in the New York Herald Tribune. "It is a year in which the United Nations will hold fast while Ameriea prepares the means of holding the Japanese and Gerrnans encircled by sea and land to prevent them from joining hands or gaining new reources or bases. The building up of a worldwide system of protected communications is an essential preliminary to offensive operations which this system is making possible and which will ' decide the war. "One of the greatest achievements oi the Allies has been the consolidation of the great Pacific route from Ameriea to Australia, and the operations in New Guinea are directly connected writh the protection of this far-flung artery of power." "The rising sun appears to have gone down again over Attu and Agatu in the Aleutians, and there is, evidence that the Japanese are linding their Aleutians not worth the cost," says the New York Herald Tribune editorialiy. £ IMILAR F'lND IN NEW GUINEA. "Thousands of miles away, in the tropic jungles of New Guinea, the enemy seern to have made a similar discovery and to have simply decamped. But one should not over readily yield to the temptation to reduce our estimates of the Japanese fighting qualities. "The aggressive spirit that tries everything,' even in the face of risk, that is willing abruptly to cut losses in one theatre where matters do not go well in order to try somewhere else, can be overdone, but has great military virtue. "Since the Allies reformed their shattered lines in the Pacific war has consisted of a series of Japanese thrusts which were repelled with heavy Japanese losses But there has been attrition on our side, too. "In the Pacific war, from Andreanov Islands to the Owen Stanley Range, strategies cannot be judged until the last scores are in, but boldness is always advantageous, even if operations do, not turn out exactly as planned." The New York Times, commenting on the operations of Australia-based bombers in the Solomons area, says that the net result of the damage done to Kieta airfield has not been offlcially estimated, but must have tremendously assisted the U.S. marines on Guadalcanar because the Japanese air foree has obviously been preparing a counter-attack against Guadalcanar. In the Aleutians, it is reported, recent aerial pictures demonstrate that the Japanese have not abandoned Kiska, but are bending every eflort to make the base stronger. Many buildings have been sunk in pits and dummy airfields constructed.