CALLED PORTENTOUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1942, Page 3

CALLED PORTENTOUS

SITUATION IN ALEUTIAN ISLANDS SIGNIFICANCE OF JAPANESE OCCUPATION. IMPEDING AMERICAN CONTACT WITH RUSSIA. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 22. The situation in the Aleutian islands where the battle between United States aircraft and submarines and Japanese naval forces continues, is described by an American naval observer in London as “portentous.” Attu, which has been occupied by the Japanese, is about 800 miles from the Japanese naval base in the Imperial Islands, he said, but opposite Attu, on trie Soviet Kamchatka Peninsula, is Petropavlovsk, where an excellent harbour could hold all the navies of the world. By occupying the western Aleutians, the Japanese had made a good attempt to prevent the United States using Kamchatka. The situation was uncertain because of the foggy weather. The Japanese, by seizing the American weather station at Kiska, had deprived the Americans of a most valuable source of information and were in a position to choose their own weather for operations. The situation, he said, was not serious at the moment, but if the Japanese attacked Russia they could use their positions in the north to keep American supplies from reaching Russia along that route.