VITAL BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1942, Page 3

VITAL BATTLE

OPENED BY THE FALL OF SINGAPORE JAPANESE ATTACK ON AUSTRALIA REGARDED AS INEVITABLE. FEDERAL PRIME MINISTER’S DECLARATION. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) CANBERRA, February 16. “The fall of Singapore opens the Battle for Australia. Singapore is our Dunkirk.” With these warning words the Prime Minister, Mr Curtin, declared that everything we have, everything which belongs to us must now be mobilised. Mr Curtin said that the Government was now fully convinced that a Japanese attack on Australia was inevitable. “On the battle for Australia,” proceeded Mr Curtin, “will depend not merely the fate of the Commonwealth, but the frontier of the United States, indeed, all the Americas, and therefore the fate of the English-speaking world. He would be a very dull person who did not accept the fall of Singapore as involving a completely new situation. “The Battle for Australia demands what the Battle of Britain required. The service and complete devotion of Britons in the defence of their homeland applies with equal force to the Australians for the defence of Australia. “Our honeymoon is finished. We must work and fight as never before. Every citizen has a parallel duty to that of the man in the fighting forces. Hours which were previously devoted to sport and leisure must now be given to the duties of war.” The full Cabinet is to assemble inl Sydney tomorrow, followed by a i meeting of the War Cabinet which is regarded as the most vital in the Commonwealth’s history. The Minister of the Army, Mr Forde, announced that secret moves which were decided on some weeks ago in the belief that Singapore would not be held—including large-scale movements of troops and aircraft—are already being carried out. Mr Forde told interviewers that he had no information as to whether Australian troops had been moved from Singapore Island, and also that he had no further news with regard to the Australian troops in New Guinea and Amboina. MR CHURCHILL’S SPEECH AUSTRALIAN MINISTERS DISAPPOINTED. CANBERRA, February 16. Federal Ministers expressed disappointment at Mr Churchill’s speech, which they said was merely a defence of his administration against the odium arising out of the fall of Singapore.