CRUCIAL STAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 August 1942, Page 3

CRUCIAL STAGE

REACHED IN PACIFIC CONFLICT AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT’S •VIEW. NEED OF MAJOR FORCES. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 26. The war in the F’acific has now entered a crucial period which will determine the success of the United Nations’ strategy , against the shrewdness and military power of Japan. This is the view of Mr Joseph C. Harsch, the “Christian Science Monitor” war correspondent, who has just returned to America from Australia. “The task confronting the United Nations is to fight a successful holding war from China, Siberia and Australia till major American forces can be diverted to those places,” he says. “Meanwhile the Japanese conquests will be consolidated intensively if the enemy is left in unharassed possession of the occupied areas. “Our supply lines are the longest that have ever been known in warfare. Our command is not unified. The shipments of men and materia] for the Pacific are determined not by the needs but by what can be spared from the other fronts. “The Japanese tactics have displayed considerable ability. Their High Command at no point has been tempted to over-extension by easy victory; it has always kept its basic aim, namely, to push back the whole periphery.” Mr Harsch believes that Japan is not likely to embark on any fresh ambitious moves till she has consolidated her present holdings, and therefore he considers that Japan will not attack Siberia, but will prefer to wait for a cheaper conquest if Russia collapses. Undoubtedly Japan considers Australia and New Zealand desirable, says Mr Harsch, but they are regarded as of secondary importance because of their relative poverty in raw materials and other war resources.