Hold on New Guinea Not a Strangle Hold

Manawatu Times, Volume 67, Issue 206, 29 August 1942, Page 5

Hold on New Guinea Not a Strangle Hold

Japs May Soon be in Precarious Position

(By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyrlerht.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) Received Saturday, 1.15 a.m. SYDNEY, Aug. 28. “The Japanese lauding at Milne Bay is a surprising demonstration of Japanese strength. It shoves that even if the Solomons battle succeeds, the battle for the South-west Raciuc is not won and Australia and New Zealand not freed from the risk of invasion. The Japanese will have outflanked oui Solomons positions before wo have finished mopping up, if Milne Bay is consolidated by them in defiance of increasing Allied air-power in this theatre.” This comment by the New York Evening Post military writer indicates the growing realisation that the Solomons and eastern New Guinea areas are not distinct engagements, but are Uoth part of a major battle for the South Pacific. Although the second phase of the battle for the South Pacific has ended in a victory for the Allies, it is considered that the third phase is to come. American observers believe that the Allied fleet is now massing to the north of the Solomons in the hopeful anticipation of a showdown with the main Japanese battle fleet. The outcome of such a battle is confidently awaited. All indications suggest that the Allies are anxious to expand the present guerilla fighting into a full-scale naval action. However, with the Japanese in desperate need of success to level the score, some American observers, including Hanson Baldwin, feel that the enemv may be temnted to launch an-nfJ-fvr thrust nyainst Pearl Harbour and Midway. Such an attack would be a major counter-blow on the Milne Bay principle designed to distract and divert Allied offensive forces from the tf»«k of rolling back the Japanese. But while the news of the Milne Bay land fighting does not offer a complete picture, war commentators fed that unless it can be ntronndv sut>T>ortpd hv the enemy, the Allied forces in New Guinea are powerful enough to deal with this new threat. It is pointed out that every effort of the Japanese to press inland from their northern New Guinea bases —Lae and Salamaua—has been blocked by Allied patrols. In these sectors, as well as Kokoda, the Japanese seldom venture abroad in parties of fewer than fifty, but they have been continually repulsed. The Japanese hold on New Guinea is still decidedly not a stranglehold. If they are finally and completely repulsed in the Solomons and their supply lines to New Guinea menaced, it will be a very precarious hold indeed. The new enemy landing at Milne Bay is symptomatic as much of the rising tempo of the Pacific war as of Japan’s steady purpose to reduce Port Moresby before continuing their drive south. The major allied successes recently encourage observers here to the hopefm view that the Japanese may stick out his neck just a little too far. However, long and arduous fighting by land, air and sea is recognised to be in prospect. “We must get fighting mad. It is u matter of kill or be killed,” declared Dr. Earle Page, the newest member ox the Australian War Cabinet, to-day. The view that this might prove a ten years war, for which he had been criticised, was realistic, he said. “We mußt fight as a nation on land, sea and air, op farms and in workshops, morning, noon and night. We must match the Japanese cult of Bushido with a crusading de termination to blot the Japanese off the map in the southern Pacific.” While the United Nations’ production was outstripping the Axis, Dr. Page warned that it would be a mistake to dismiss Japan’s shipping position too lightly. Though her losses had been heavy, she had seized 500,000 tons of Allied shipping since entering the war.