“CUFF EMOTION”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1942, Page 4

“CUFF EMOTION”

AND OPTIMISTIC “SOUND EFFECTS”

REGARDING WAR IN PACIFIC DENOUNCED BY NEW YORK PAPER. ATTACKS ON ALLEGED COMPLACENCY. i By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day. 12.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, September 17. Sharply criticising “confident and rash statements from the broad reaches of the Pacific,” the “New York Her-ald-Tribune” quotes recent optimistic enunciations by Generals Blarney, Blendy and Kenny, and adds: “In the face of these triumphs of mimeograph machines it was unkind of the Janancsc to launch another determined’ aiic-mpt on Guadalcanal - . “Between bureaucratic secrecy and stupidity and the legitimate suppres- • a..; military information, the public has been confused and even misled so of on that it is rapidly losing confidence in official statements, and it is getting tired of war by guff emotion and sound effects,” the “HeraldTribune” continues. “Furthermore, it is acquiring an uneasy suspicion that throughout the conduct of the war there has been too much brag and calculated publicity, too much concealing of failure and too little harsh realism. This vice certainly is running from tup to bottom, but there might be less among the masses at the bottom if fewer examples were offered at the top.”

The London “Star,” criticising Sir T. Blarney's statement that the. Japanese will not take Port Moresby, says: “General Blarney stands for the cheerful optimist who 's always reassuring. When the. Nazis reached Boulogne, his type told us we .bad the enemy just where we wanted him. Singapore for them was- a fortress that would never fall. Now they seek to persuade us that, that Japanese have reached their limit of expansion. We cannot be complacent. about Port Moresby. On any r'.ay the struggle for it may reach a crisis. It is most important for the defence of Australia—far more import- - ant than Guadalcanal We are still on the defensive at our chosen fighting point in the Pacific. The United Nations must destroy the Japanese aircarrier strength before they can undertake sure land offensives. The 'ght Japanese carriers known to be moat are a menace to any operations from the Aleutians to New Guinea. We :n Britain are inclined to complacence co out the Pacific, imagining that we n easily dislodge the Japanese after die Nazis have been beaten, but the Japanese in the South-West Pacific endanger the whole world-wide task of the United Nations.” DEFEAT & MASSACRE SUFFERED BY JAPANESE ON GUADALCANAR. TANKS WIPE OUT ENTIRE LANDING FORCE. (Received This Day. 11.55 a.m.) NEW YORK, September 17. American tanks turned the battle of Tenaru, the first serious Japanese attempt to regain Guadalcanal into a massacre, says a United Press of America correspondent, Mr Robert Miller, in a dispatch from Marine Headquarters ii - Solomons, The A w, wans wiped out the entire Japanese land.ng force of 750, he says. The American casualties were 28 killed and 72 wounded. “The tanks,” he adds, “rumbled down in single file towards the cocoanut; palms, where the Japanese were hidden. There were only two things the Japanese could do—run and be mown down with machine-guns or lie low. hoping the- tanks would miss them. It was pitiful to watch the Japanese trying to _ fight the tanks with rifles and machine-guns, the bullets from which penged off the armour plate harmlessly.”