Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1942. FAR EAST FAILURES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1942. FAR EAST FAILURES.

JN a broadcast from London last evening the famous New Zealand-born cartoonist, Mr David Low, said that “our failures in the Far East”—that is to say in the South-Western Pacific —were due in great part to sins of omission in the more or less distant past. Advancing that contention and elaborating upon it, Mr Low admitted that there were some grounds for criticism. Amongst these he instanced defects in the British colonial system in Malaya and elsewhere and delay in placing the affairs of India on a basis more inspiring to Indians. A good many people may be inclined to hold tentatively, or rather more than tentatively, that there are other grounds for criticism than those mentioned by Mr Low, or at all events for inquiry, where the actual conduct of operations in Malaya and some other areas of conflict is concerned. For example, it may perhaps be wondered not unreasonably whether, if the position in Malaya was from the outset as hopeless as it appears to have been, it would not have been better to apply the scorched earth policy to Singapore and, while yet there was time, to concentrate in Java all the available Allied forces and as much equipment as could be moved there. - That defeats and the loss of bases and territory in the South-Western Pacific are due in a considerable degree to a neglect of adequate preparation in the past —a neglect for which the people of New Zealand and Australia must accept a very definite share of responsibility—is not to be disputed. It remains a question, however, whether good and effective use has been made of the military resources that were available, particularly in Malaya. Sharp point and emphasis are imparted to that question now that the gallant Dutch, with the assistance of small British and American forces, are striving desperately to withstand the Japanese onslaught in Java, the last bastion remaining to the Allies in the Netherlands East Indies. In the absence of specific information, fully and finally authenticated, it would no doubt be unwarranted and unfair to base any sweeping conclusion upon the circumstances of the return to the Commonwealth of Major-General Gordon Bennett, who commanded the A.I.F. in Malaya, to report to the Australian War Cabinet and General Staff. It has been stated, however, in a cablegram from Sydney, that: What Major-General Bennett told his chief (Lieutenant-Gen-eral Sturdee, Chief of the Australian General Staff) and the Wai’ Cabinet, so secretly that even the Cabinet Secretary, Mr F. G. Shedden, was excluded ’from the meeting, is expected strongly to influence, if not change, Australian tactics in the war. He will be found an important Army post. It may or may not throw light on what is meantime •withheld from public knowledge that an Australian war correspondent, Mr Tom Fairhall, who has returned to Sydney from Malaya, has declared bluntly that:— We were outfought (in Malaya) because of red tape, blundering, scarcity of air power, lack of offensive spirit, and the native ‘■fifth column.” Unlike the Japanese, we showed little imagination. Mr Fairhall, whose observations were reported in a cablegram published yesterday, had some astonishing things to say also about the numerical weakness of British air and antiaircraft forces in Malaya, and about the manner in which these inadequate forces were controlled. More than ever in these days of mechanisation, the art of war is so highly specialised that those upon whom it devolves to direct and control military operations are in a great measure insulated from criticism. It may be supposed, however, that the ordinary citizen, and the ordinary citizen soldier, in Australia and New Zealand, will welcome cordially the overhaul of ideas that apparently is in progress in the Commonwealth, with representatives of this Dominion and other countries participating, and will hope earnestly that it may be pressed to a stage of decisive results.