CRUSHING OF JAPAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 1 September 1942, Page 5

CRUSHING OF JAPAN

PHYSICAL DEFEAT NECESSARY FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR'S VIEWS (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) Washington, Aug. 31. Mr Grew, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, in a broadcast said: “There is not sufficient room in the Pacific for peaceful American and peace-loving United Nations and swash-buckling Japan. The Japanese military cast and military system whose cruelty and brutality have caused this war must be crushea. None should entertain even momentarily the idea that the Japanese army's failure in China has discouraged the Japanese. On the contrary it has

steeled them to greater sacrifices and furthermore the Japanese High Command has relied on the white man's flabbiness. They regard us as constitutional weaklings unwilling to make sacrifices for victory against a machine which is prepared and trained with Spartan simplicity. When Japan struck she left no road for retreat.”

Mr Grew is confident we can defeat the Japanese, but victory is remote unless we realise we are fighting a powerful war machine and a people whose morale cannot be broken by economic hardship, but only by complete physical defeat and physical expulsion from areas temporarily conquered, and also by progressive attrition of their naval power and merchant marine resulting in cutting off the home= land from all outlying areas.