Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, APRIL 6, 1942. THE ADVANTAGES OF ATTACK.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, APRIL 6, 1942. THE ADVANTAGES OF ATTACK.

Y'ALfANT and successful efforts by Australian and American airmen have done a good deal of late to weaken and check the Japanese invaders on the northern outpost lines of the Commonwealth. At the end of last week, too, it was stated in Washington by the chairman of the Senate Foreign .Relations Committee (Senator T. Connally) that, on the basis of information given to the committee by Admiral Thomas Hart, it was believed that the United Nations’ forces were sufficiently strong to hold Australia as a base for future offensive action. It must be hoped that better and more authoritative grounds exist for this encouraging intimation than for the observations attributed, in the same cablegram, to the former isolationist. Senator R. R. Reynolds, who is chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate. In demanding that General MacArthur should be recalled for a conference with 'the Pacific War Council, Senator Reynolds suggested that no difficulty need be involved because, as he put it:— The evidence shows that it will be a long time before America can take the offensive, because it will take a long time to get the men and equipment across 12,000 miles of dangerous water. At a direct view this is by no means encouraging, but if tvoulJ be rash to assume that Senator Reynolds spoke with final authority in maintaining that American offensive action in the Pacific must be long delayed. Within limits, indeed, the Americans have already taken the offensive, in attacks on Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands and elsewhere, and on Japanese naval forces and other shipping, and much is to be hoped from a multiplication and intensification of attacks of this character. In what has already happened, there are some indications of an acceptance by the United Nations of the view expressed not long ago by an Australian commentator that, under Pacific conditions especially, the attacker has the advantage. It must not bo forgotten (the commentator added) that, at the present inchoate juncture, the Japanese are no less vulnerable to aggressive measures than the Allies have proved themselves to be in the last three months. Aggressiveness can work both ways; and it is for the United Nations to take their turn at it in the Pacific. Definitely as the United Nations are under the necessity of concentrating strong forces in a number of vital areas, of which Burma, India and Australia are conspicuous examples, and of maintaining and protecting long lines of communication, they are faced also by undoubted opportunities of attack upon an enemy whose communications also arc elongated and in some areas precarious. Naturally there will be no information in advance regarding the development of Allied offensive action, but against the gloomy suggestion of Senator Reynolds there are to be set already not. only the successful and damaging American attacks on enemy island bases, but the fact, that since hostilities began United States forces have sunk or damaged 52 Japanese warships and 76 other Japanese vessels.