Pacific Front Secondary to Europe

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

Pacific Front Secondary to Europe

Situation Regarded as Satisfactory

(By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received Friday, 11 p.m. NEW YORK, Aug. 27.

4 4 The Pacific situation is satisfactory in view of all. the facts,” declares Joseph Harsch, Christian Science Monitor correspondent, who recently returned from covering the war in south-west Pacific. The front was being held with not very substantial American assistance. The Allies were a long way from oeating Japan, however, and still faced a desperate fight until America was able to divert major offensive strength to the Pacific, but we had retained our main positions and resisted enemy at tempts to cut communications and seize lines of re-entry. The Japanese had not- succeeded in shaking the Allied strategy of concentrating on Hitler while holding Japan. Harsch's chief reason for finding that the Pacific situation is satisfactory ia that the Japanese have not been al lowed to advance beyond the lines established by American military councils years ago. He reveals that before the attack on Pearl Harbour, British, American and Canadian forces were being moved in the Pacific into a buffe: area between tho American and Japanese spheres, but the enemy moved too quickly to permit completion of the plan, and seized the Philippines after a .resistance almost exactly equal to Washington’s anticipation?. 4 4 The American leaders did not, however, expect the easy fall of Malaya and Singapore,** he says, 44 but London after the war may reveal it anticipated these losses and had intended to with draw the Malayan army from Singapore and defend Burma. The final disastrous attempt to defend the Singapore cost 100,000 men and may turn out to be an improvisation forced on London by the Australian Government.* • Harsch believes Java might have been held with 200 good lighters and 150 first-class bombers, but the Dutch possessed only a few obsolete planes purchased before the outbreak of the European war. They did not receive any lease-lend planes from America; these began to arrive in Australia f»nly after tho fall of Java.

HaTsch says the loss of Burma was not a vital blow to the Allies, since Burma forms parts of the no-man’s-land outside the vital Allied bastions. Harsch also sets out the full facts of the restricted American assistance in the south-west Pacific theatre. He confesses with a sense of guilt that his despatches, like those of other American correspondents, emphasised the cheerful aspects of the war in tho Pacific, and says he has now offered the real facts by way of atonement. America, he says, is following master strategy in concentrating her efforts on Europe. The forces available for the Pacific wero extremely small for what had to be accomplished. Considerin}. this, the success achieved had been magnificent. 44 A Pacific showdown seems at hand,” says the New York Times correspondent, Hanson Baldwin, in com menting on the Solomons campaign 4 4 which may alter the finely-drawn balance of power in the Pacific, thus uffecting the entire course of the war n the Pacific theatre.” Baldwin explains that it is clear that the marines and the navy are tenaciously clinging to their footholds on Guadalcanal and the other Southern Solomons, while the American air force is operating from one or more of the recently conquered fields. 4 4 This big asset is enhanced by the proximity of the Solomons to the other Allied bases in Australia, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and else where, from which long-range bombors are supporting our naval forces,” the correspondent adds. The fact that both sides are throwing considerable naval forces into tho action stresses the strategic importance of the battle, because the Solomons and Dieppe have proved that invasion and occupation are possible only if naval superiority can be maintained. Therefore, the Japanese attacks on Guadalcanal and the abortive Japanese land ing attempts are considerably loss im portant than the naval clash. Concluding, Baldwin says: “The Solomons may be the preface to other action elsewhere. Since June, when Japan chose Midway and the Hawaiian? as her objective, she has not struck anywhere until now, but the Japanese do not entertain a passive concept of war. The Coral Sea battle preceded Midwav —the Solomons may precede an attempt against Hawaii unless successive defeats too greatly deplete the Japanese navy.”