STERN BATTLE FOR GUADALCANAR

Southland Times, Issue 24879, 20 October 1942, Page 5

STERN BATTLE FOR GUADALCANAR

JAPANESE USE MAXIMUM STRENGTH (Special Australian Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 11 p.m.) SYDNEY, October 19. In the obscurity of official reticence and the confusion of conflicting opinion among the world s war news analysts one prime fact stands out in the battle for the Solomons. It is that the Japanese are intent upon pouring into this “war crucible ’ the maximum strength of ships, planes and men they are able to muster. Anything less than complete victory for Japan will carry tacit implications of eventual defeat in the Pacific war. It will be an admission that Japan’s power by sea and air is no longer capable of sustaining, still less of expanding, her Pacific Empire. In her efforts to win back the Solomons Japan has withdrawn strength from her main bases in the central Pacific, probably from the Netherlands East Indies and apparently from New Guinea. That she is unable to maintain her New Guinea offensive while preparing for the. Solomons blow is in itself an admission of comparative weakness. There have'been few war observers who have believed that the American grip on the south-eastern Solomons was complete and secure. It had been widely held that Japan could retake the islands—if she was prepared to pay a price sufficiently high. The gravest danger to the Allies’ broad Pacific strategy is perhaps less that the islands should be retaken than that the price of their recapture should not be sufficiently high in irreplaceable ships and aircraft.

A decisive victory for the Allies in the naval battle which, if it has pot already joined, must almost certainly be looming, would mark the real start of the much-talked of island hopping offensive against Japan. By taking the southern Solomons the Americans merely positioned themselves for such an offensive. While Japan may have won local air supremacy in the Solomons (although this is still in dispute) it has been gained only at the expense of other theatres. On the broader Pacific front air superiority now lies with the United Nations. HEAVY SEA LOSSES Japan’s sea losses in this attrition war have been heavy and may well be the eventual decisive factor. Among the 368 Japanese vessels claimed to have been sunk during the war William Fleisher, former editor of The Japanese Advertiser, lists six aircraft-carriers, -24 cruisers, 45 destroyers, 29 submarines, 93 transports, 12 supply ships and 99 merchant ships. Further heavy losses in the Solomons naval battle, unless these were compensated for by a crippling defeat of the American Fleet, would put Japan definitely on the defensive.

The first aim in the double strategy inspiring the American occupation of the south-eastern Solomons was to break the keystone of Japanese encirclement in the South-west Pacific and the threat to the Allied supplyline. The second was to draw the Japanese Navy into a position where its valuable units would become vul-

nerable to attack by Allied ships and aircraft. “At the moment the second objective seems to have been too successful,” according to the war commentator in The Christian Science Monitor, “but not until word comes from the silent United States Fleet will it be possible to tell whether the Japanese have run into a trap or whether their naval striking force has again been under-estimated.” USE OF CAPITAL SHIPS The correspondent adds that the appearance of Japanese battleships off the Solomons has given rise to the question where are the big United States “battlewagons.” Two factors affect the answer. United States naval men still believe that a full-dress engagement between the capital ships is a distinct possibility. Thus the American ships must remain where they may best serve for such an event. Alternatively, knowing the Japanese penchant for economy of force, the United States may have decided that the Solomons could be defended and reinforced by heavy cruisers alone. But there is no reason to suppose that United States reinforcement by capital ship strength is impossible. Air supremacy, perhaps depending on the American ability to hold Guadalcanar airfield and maintain it in commission, is likely to influence the outcome of any major naval battle. But it is this battle which will decide the whole future course of the Pacific war. Until the question of Pacific naval supremacy has been decided the course of the war in this theatre must remain incalculable and liable to sudden upsets.