ALLIED FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1942, Page 3

ALLIED FORCE

OF FORMIDABLE STRENGTH BUILT UP IN AUSTRALIA, WAR MINISTER’S SURVEY. ' (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, April 6. “In spite of the continuing gravity of the Pacific situation, it is not unwise to say that Australia’s position is distinctly easier than it was two months ago,” said the Minister of the Army, Mr Forde, today after making an inspection of a United States army camp in New South Wales. “We owe some of this added, security to the speedy and generous help that has been given by Britain and the United States, and some of it to the realistic measures taken by the Australian Government and military leaders. “These joint measures,” he said, “have built up in the Commonwealth an extremely formidable Allied force, which in the north has already shown the Japanese the sharpness of its edge. “‘I am encouraging nobody to believe that the ‘tide has turned.’ The tide always returns. We must be vigilant and ready. There is a long way to go yet. The tide in which I am most interested is the flood tide on whidh the full strength of the Allies will flow toward Japan for the final battle with the enemy of mankind.” The Minister declared that the strenuous work of past weeks on all sides had transformed the military position in Australia. Together Generals MacArthur and Blarney were preparing the security of Australia and to make the country a jumpingoff place from which the enemy would be driven into the sea, driven from the islands he had temporarily captured and from the Philippines.