Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1942. A GOOD BEGINNING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 August 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1942. A GOOD BEGINNING.

-0 gOME remarkably varied estimates have been made by American, and other commentators of the significance and probable effect of the offensive action taken by the Allies in the Solomon Islands —action which, has resulted thus far in units of the United States Marine Corps establishing an apparently firm command over valuable island bases and aerodromes, there is general agreement that the gains thus made are limited, though far from negligible, and that much remains to be done, as Majoi Fielding Eliot has observed in an article in the New York before the Allies will be able to consider their situation decisively improved in the South-Western Pacific.

An extreme of pessimism, to call it nothing else, surely is touched, however, in the belief reported in one of yesterday s cablegrams to have been expressed by Mr Alexander Kirafly, in. an article in the magazine “Asia.” That belief, according to the cablegram in question, is that Japan may have prepared a series of “mock defeats” in the Pacific and that her heavy losses in the Coral Sea, Midway Island and Aleutian Islands battles and in those fought off Australia, “may be designed to create an illusion of weakness in the minds of the Allies.” To the ordinary man, making no claim to expert knowledge, it may appear that a continuing series of “mock defeats” of this kind might very easily resolve itself eventually into final and devastating defeat.

Turning from fancy to facts, it is not in doubt that the Allies have gained an important initial victory in the Solomons. At a price, which included the loss of the Australian cruiser Canberra and approximately one-fourth of her complement, the Japanese naval forces in the region were defeated and put to flight and valuable air and other bases were seized and are now firmly held. As to the present trend of operations in the Solomons, a United States communique published yesterday reported that in two engagements—the more important arising out of an enemy landing—762 Japanese were killed and 30 taken prisoner against an American loss of 34 marines killed and 85 wounded.

It is recognised that Japan may be impelled by the heavy setback she has suffered in the Solomons to undertake a naval and air counterstroke on a major scale and that if affairs take this course very heavy fighting must be expected in the island areas north of Australia. The possibility thus raised tends, however, rather to support than to discredit opinions that the measure of success gained by the Allies in the Solomons is likely to be of far-reaching effect on the strategic situation in and around the Pacific.

One apparently reasonable suggestion that has been advanced is that if Japan risks a large part of her naval and air strength in an attempt to recover what she has lost in the Solomons and to renew her'threat to other island groups and to Australia-, she will hardly be able to venture also upon the attack on Siberia she is believed to have in immediate or early contemplation. It is'of interest, too, that Senator M. E. Ty dings, a member of the United States Senate Naval Affairs Committee was reported yesterday as stating that the Solomons victory would not only open the way to air attacks on Japanese shipping and to an Allied offensive drive up the Pacific, but might postpone the Japanese attack on India, “which has probably been planned for a few weeks hence, when the monsoon ends,”

Time and events must show how far these anticipations are justified. It is clear, however, that if Japan attempts a powerful counterstroke in the South-Western Pacific she must take the tremendous hazards that have been demonstrated to be entailed in pitting warships against shore-based aircraft. If, on the other hand, she declines to take that risk she will be in some respects badly placed to engage in offensive action in other areas. Should she in these circumstances attack Russia, or India, or both, the resultant distribution of her forces would favour, perhaps in an irqportant degree, an enterprising extension of the Allied offensive which meantime has made limited but promising progress in the Solomons.