END NOT YET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1942, Page 3

END NOT YET

AMERICANS MOVING INLAND IN THE TULAGI AREA. PARATROOPS EMPLOYED. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 13. The news from the Solomon Islands is believed here to be more encouraging than for the past few days. The 1 atmosphere at General MacArthur s South-West Pacific Headquarters has been one of expectant waiting. However, the battle is said to show no signs of ending, and there is no indication of the position becoming stabilised. The American forces are moving inland in the Tulagi area, and are now locked in fierce hand-to-hand fighting with Japanese troops. The San Francisco radio reports that the Japanese are said to have launched a heavy counter-attack. A Washington correspondent says that American paratroops are being employed to harass the Japanese positions in the Solomons. Battleships and aircraft-carriers are understood to be involved in the battle, as well as cruisers, destroyers, submarines and troop transports. American reports indicate that naval units are still off the coast. This indicates that the Allied air superiority is being maintained, since it would be impossible for ships to operate close inshore for long periods without air control. War correspondents at General MacArthur’s headquarters say that judgment on the Solomons operation must be reserved till it is sure that the gains we have made have been consolidated beyond possibility of repulse. The only facts definitely known from official communiques are that the Allies have established bridgeheads in the Tulagi area and that each side has sustained losses. The Allied land gains have not yet been specified, but a hopeful note begins to appear in the communiques. The military view is that reasonable cost does not count if the objective is gained, but in long-range strategy it i • inevitable that the results must be assessed in relation to the losses. The basis for this assessment is not ship for ship, plane for plane, and man for man, but the capacity of the opposing forces to withstand and recover from those losses. The Honolulu correspondent of the American Associated Press desciibes the attack as “the beginning of a continuous campaign which, owing to its amphibious nature, will appear to be a sequence of piecemeal and sepaiate operations.” He quotes a military observer as agreeing that the United Nations’ offensive in the South-West Pacific will be “long and bitter. The "Sydney Morning Herald’s war correspondent says: “If we do no more at this stage than set up a few isolated bases, the effort will have been justified.”