ENEMY PREPARES IN SOLOMONS

Southland Times, Issue 24873, 13 October 1942, Page 5

ENEMY PREPARES IN SOLOMONS

IMPORTANT BATTLE EXPECTED (Special Australian. Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Oct. 12. American naval experts believe that the most crucial land battle in the Pacific since the fall of the East Indies and Malaya is shaping in the Solomons. They explain that Japan’s determination to reinforce her troops on Guadalcanar regardless of losses show that she hopes to concentrate sufficient ground forces to march down the island against the American airfield. The Washington United Press correspondent says the Japanese landings are taking place on the same side of the mountains where the American positions are established. Therefore, the Japanese are probably considering a southward push through a series of pincer actions. Naval observers who emphasize the importance of the south-east Solomons in protecting the Allied supply routes to Australia and New Zealand do not attempt to minimize the blow to our Pacific strategic position should the Japanese push succeed. REINFORCEMENTS NEEDED Joseph Harsch, until recently The Christian Science Monitor war correspondent in the South-west Pacific, declares that American operations in the Solomons were distorted during the early phases and the public was led to believe that this was a great counterattack to sweep the Japanese back through the East Indies and Philippines. He says reliable sources declare, that the Marines cannot hold out indefinitely unless they are substantially reinforced quickly. The Sydney Morning Herald war correspondent, who recently visited Guadalcanal says that large reinforcements have arrived there, considerably easing the position, which more than once in the past seven weeks has been “touch and go.” RAID ONJIABAUL JAPANESE SCURRY TO HILLS

(Rec. 11.35 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 11. Officers and men scurried to safety in the nearby hills during the second raid on Rabaul by Flying Fortresses, says the correspondent of the Associated Press in New Guinea, Major William Hipps, who was aboard one of the bombers. “Do not let anyone tell you that those sons of the Emperor like bombs,” he said. “When approaching Rabaul we saw long lines of car-lights streaming into the hills from the centre of the town. No one goes joy-riding at night as fast as those cars were travelling.” The commanding officer of the bomber said he was proud of every man who participated. What they did not do the first night they did on Saturday. Both missions were entirely successful. The correspondent adds that the crippling blows against Rabaul are believed to have appreciably complicated the Japanese supply and reinforcement problems, both in New Guinea and Solomons theatres.