BATTLE FOR SOLOMONS

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 248, 21 October 1942, Page 5

BATTLE FOR SOLOMONS

ENEMY NOT YET EXTENDED ALLIED LAND -B ASED PLANES A FACTOR.

P.A. Gable.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20.

Colonel Knox told a press conference that the Solomons is still a good, stiff, hard fight. "In my judgment the Japanese have by no means as yet exercised their maximum force," he said. He had nothing to add to the most recent communique announcing the sudden reappearance of American warships in the Solomons. He said that communiques were foeing issued as rapidly as information was received. Colonel Knox indicated that landbased aeroplanes will play a much greater part in naval activity in the Solomons. Asked if he would comment upon the number of planes, he replied that such information could not be disclosed, but he could say that the number of land-based planes used by the Navy was steadily increasing. Colonel Knox praised the Office of War Information for its report on the performance of American planes, saying that it was extremely weil done.

VERY GREAT ISSUES. "The Japanese attack on Guadalcanar must be considered against the tbackground of the war in the whole Pacific theatre," says the HeraldTribune's military analyst, Major Feilding Eliot. "Very great issues depend on the outcome of the fight for the airfield and one small island. , If the Japanese were successful, they would reap great advantages. 1. They would regain considerable freedom of action in the immediate Solomons area, for we would then he forced to retreat to our nearest air hase in the New Hebrides. 2. The Japanese operations in New Guinea would he aided, hy the ahility to concentrate larger forces there. 3. The Japanese would be enabled to detach naval and air forces for an assault on our great trans-Paciflc line of eommunications on which the security of Australia largely depends. JAPAN'S LIMITED AIR POWER. "In estimating the effect of the Paciflo operations the factor of air power is, perhaps, the most important. The effective use the Japanese have made of their rather limited air force has given us an exaggerated idea of the Japanese air power, and certainly some published statements of the Japanese plane production far exceeded the facts. "Japan's planes are divided betv/een the army and navy. Admiral Hart recently noted that all the Japanese planes encountered round the South China Sea v/ere navy planes, and the same thing is probably tr.ue in the Solomons. This suggests that the navy has the first call on Japanese plane production. "Thus the fighting in the Solomons affects a Japanese attack against Siberia, since the army obviously could not hope for a successful campaign against the Russians without sufficient planes, but if the Japanese regain Guadalcanar they could release planes for the army on the Siberian frontier. "Therefore, the influence of the fighting on Guadalcanar may be felt in Moscow, and perhaps on the borders of India. This in indeed a global war."