JAPANESE MOVE AIR STRENGTH

Southland Times, Issue 24820, 12 August 1942, Page 5

JAPANESE MOVE AIR STRENGTH

USE IN BATTLE FOR SOLOMONS

(Rec. 6.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, August 11. | Reports reaching Allied Headquarters ' indicate that the enemy has moved part ■ of his air strength from the New BriI tain and New Guinea area and has flung I it into the battle for the Solomons. In ■' Saturday’s bombing raids on a number lof enemy aerodromes little interfer- ■ ence was met from the Japanese fighters and only a few Japanese aircraft were seen on the ground. The only fighter interception/was over Lakunai aerodrome at Rabaul.

Observers at General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters say that the Allied move is to snatch a quick victory from the enemy, who has had months to establish himself in the bases now under attack. “To lose this battle of our own seeking would be to invite a further attack from the arrogant Nipponese,” writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s war correspondent. “To win it would be only the first of many agonizing steps before we could hope to place the enemy back where he belongs.” SECOND FRONT IDEA SCOUTED

American suggestions that a second front has been opened in the Pacific are regarded as “altogether too sweeping.” “If every Japanese was turned out of the Solomons from Guadalcanar in the south to Buka in the north it does not follow that Rabaul would be in danger of falling,” says The Sydney Morning Herald’s commentator, “and their considerable base at Rabaul would need to be captured before the Japanese could be said to be checkmated on this front.” General MacArthur’s communiques do not mention the Solomon Islands battle, for the reason that it is being directed from a centre not within his area, but Australian and American air and naval forces under his command are giving valuable assistance in the action.

Second front suggestions are further discounted by The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent at General MacArthur’s headquarters, who writes: “Forget those pipe-dreams of any grand-scale South-West Pacific offensive against the Japanese. Those ‘Back home via Tokyo’ signs which pilots paint on their planes in the far north are valuable only as camouflage colourings. The offensive needs a fleet of modern aircraft not only in the war theatre, but rolling off the assembly line. Il needs an armada of vessels and a high-powered naval force to convoy them. It needs aircraft-carriers, a submarine fleet and a powerful and fully-equipped invading army. Above all, it needs a public will to accept the enormous losses of men and materials. We have many of these requirements, but not nearly enough.”