MAJOR IMPASSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1942, Page 4

MAJOR IMPASSE

APPARENTLY REACHED BY JAPANESE IN SOUTH-WESTERN PACIFIC. CORRESPONDENT'S HOPEFUL VIEW. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 12.20 p.m.) ■ RUGBY, March 31. The retreat of Japanese forces from Markham Valley to a narrow coastal fringe, from Finschhafen to Salamaua, coupled with the lull in Japanese activity in the past week, appears to indicate clearly that the enemy has reached his first major impasse in the South-west Pacific. This opinion is expressed by a correspondent at Port Moresby, who adds: “I think it would not be over-optimis-tic to foresee the time when the Japanese position in the areas under occupation will change from precarious to impossible. Although it is too early yet to say the tide has turned, there are indications that the Japanese tide, which in three’ months has rolled over islands and countries north and south of the Equator, has reached and passed its full force. It has taken a little island group in the South-West Pacific. New Guinea may prove that aggression is the best defence, and that Japan’s Achilles heel is its attenuated supply lines, which, if slashed sufficiently, can destroy the monster of Yellow aggression. The New Guinea venture, when the Japanese gains are compared with the Japanese losses, has proved the most expensive yet undertaken. This might be because it has been conducted at the end of the most extreme lines of communication, but perhaps the sounder reason is that they are finally facing an opposition stronger, strategically sounder and more desperately offensive than in any other Pacific theatre except the Philippines. Our ham-mer-like blows against the Salamaua, Lae and Rabaul invasion forces has undoubtedly broken up the Japanese plans and diverted elsewhere a large section of their striking power.’’