Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1942. THE JAPANESE MENACE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 February 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1942. THE JAPANESE MENACE.

Japanese radio broadcast in English on Friday evening quoted one of the leading Tokio newspapers, Hie “Asahi Shimbun,” as stating that the raids on Darwin had plunged the people throughout Australia into a state of terror, because they knew that their whole country was now in danger of being overrun by Japanese forces. While it is interesting and encouraging to find that the Japanese Avar lords are attempting to sustain the spirits of their countrymen with fairy tales of this kind, the necessity of being prepared to withstand Japanese attacks is, of course, recognised clearly both in Australia and in New Zealand. Until the Allies have assembled the forces that will enable them to launch a counter-offensive, methodically planned, Japan evidently will continue to enjoy a certain freedom of action in, the South Pacific and will be in a position to attack, at will, distant and widely-separated objectives. flow far it is expedient, from her own standpoint, that she should exercise this freedom is another question. Tn her conquest of Malaya, Singapore and considerable parts of the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines, Japan meantime has made spectacular gains. In spite of the losses she is suffering at present in the naval and air battle off the island of Bali, it is not yet to be taken for granted that the Allies will be able to hold Java against her onslaught. It is one thing to make conquests of this kind in violent and widelydispersed efforts, however, and another thing to hold them in an extended and possibly protracted Avar.

A Dutch bulletin issued last week stated that in nine weeks of warfare 56 Japanese warships had been sunk or damaged. Upon this a naval commentator (Mr 11. C. Ferraby) has observed that even the damaged enemy ships, on account of the great distance of the fighting areas' from available repair bases and other factors, are likely to be out of action for a fairly considerable period. Mr Ferraby’s broad conclusion is that (as the position stood last week) Japan had lost, permanently or temporarily, one-fifth of her total number of warships, and had done so, not in action that would tend to give her assured command of the sea, but largely in the conquest of harbours and burnt-out oilfields.

These losses, now being udded to in the battle off'Bali, are likely in the end to count for vastly more than those Japan was able to inflict on the United States at Pearl Harbour and on Britain in the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. Apart from other possibilities the situation holds, the naval prospect, facing Japan is that of having to encounter in the comparatively near future a great and growing preponderance of Allied strength. There can be no question of minimising either the losses the Allies have suffered or the danger that Japan may be able still to extend further and considerably the range of her attacks. There are good grounds for believing, however, that as the naval war assumes shape and definition

she will find some even of her apparently most, valuable gains rather an embarrassment than a source of strength.