POLICY OF ATTACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1942, Page 3

POLICY OF ATTACK

MUST BE AUSTRALIA’S ONE IDEA GENERAL BENNETT’S COUNSEL. SOME LESSONS TAUGHT BY JAPANESE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 4. “Australia need have no fear of the Japanese if we take advantage of the lessons of Malaya,” said Major-General Gordon Bennett, “but if we fail to learn from experience, there can be no other answer but defeat. In Australia our one idea must be to attack, attack and attack. “The Japanese, from general to private, have the offensive spirit, and that must be our spirit. The Japanese are not super soldiers. Simplicity was the keynote of all their tactical methods in Malaya. Our difficulty was the complicated system we have evolved in our Army, which operates against easy and rapid co-ordination. For example, the Japanese found that the bicycle is an easy and good means of transport in jungle country. “Compared with our motor trucks, bicycles had the advantages that they did not need fuel, they were easy to conceal, and the troops could split up into sections and could move fast along tracks on which no lorry could move. “The Japanese won battles by manoeuvring. They were not loaded down with complex equipment. Their main weapons were tommy guns, machine-guns and mortars. “The answers to the Japanese tactics are aggressive inspiration from the top and brilliant junior leadership. The Australian troops in Malaya succeeded in every clash with the Japs by throwing overboard 1918 textbook methods.”