Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1942. ANOTHER BITTER BLOW.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1942. ANOTHER BITTER BLOW.

ALTHOUGH it lias not come unexpectedly, the news that Manila, has been entered by the Japanese and that the Americans have also found it necessary to evacuate the naval base of Cavite, 15 miles south of Manila, is nevertheless a bitter blow to all the nations ranged against the Axis. It is a blow which emphasises the magnitude of the task of war faced by these nations in the Pacific. It sets new emphasis, 100, on the ,supreme importance of maintaining Singapore as a base for defence and for offensive action when that becomes practicable.

While Manila and Cavite have been lost, hopes are entertained that the American and Filipino forces led by General MacArthur will be able to maintain their resistance and that the fortress on Corregidor Island, at the mouth of Manila Bay —a fortress built and equipped at a cost of 100 million dollars—and the defences on adjacent islands, will be strong enough to maintain the fight perhaps for weeks. It must be hoped that this confidence is justified and'lliat if it is developments within these weeks may altci very considerably the present critical aspect of affairs in the Philippines and in other parts of the Pacific ivar zone.

The essential aim and task of the Allies, however, is to develop a. full-powered attack upon Japan. It would be foolish to ignore the possibility that before their preparations Io that end have been completed they may suffer further reverses.

Apart from 1 lie admitted fact of lack of adequate preparation', to which the United States in common with the other nations fighting the Axis must plead guilty, there is no visible justification for the sharp criticism by the Moscow newspaper “Pravda” of the conduct of the Philippines campaign, and particularly of the declaration of Manila as an open city. There is cruel" injustice in the assertion of the Communist newspaper that: “Petain tactics are being used to defend Manila” and that: “The failure to transform the city into a Tobruk, a Leningrad, or a Moscow constitutes an act of cowardice. ”

Before they opened the great counter-offensive in which they are now making splendid headway, the Russian armies had to abandon many cities and towns and wide stretches of rich industrial and other territory to the enemy. The battlefield of the United States in this war includes, but is not limited to, the whole Pacific region and it creates no new or novel situation that ground had to be yielded for the moment in one part or another of that vast area of conflict.

Nothing’ is less to be desired than the institution of invidious comparisons between the war contribution of. one member and another of the anti-Axis Alliance. Criticism like that of the “Pravda” can only have the effect, if it has any effect at all, of generating bad .feeling- and raising obstacles to the mutual, faith and understanding which are essential to full-powered co-operation against the common enemy.