SOLDIERS PRAISED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1942, Page 3

SOLDIERS PRAISED

BUT LEADERS SAID TO BE INEFFICIENT SHARP COMPLAINT BY NEW YORK PAPER. COMPARISON WITH CHINA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, September 22. The "Herald-Tribune” in an editorial declares that Major Eliot's impatience with the management of the defence of Port Moresby is a feeling which every reader shares, but which the layman is naturally loath to express.

“No one doubts the courage and individual resourcefulness of the Australian and American soldiery or has much faith in the superlative cleverness of the Japanese. Wherever they have won ivetories, it was by doing, the obvious thing with great courage after intensive training in the job—no more than that. Where the victories were easy it was because good soldiery were led against them by commanders lacking in the imagination to see the obvious, and lacking the gumption to adjust themselves to it. “The only thing in doubt at Port Moresby is the leadership of the forces which surrendered the strong defensive positions on the high ridges in the Owen Stanley Ranges to the Japanese, who were able to keep their supplies moving swiftly to the front lines ovex’ all geographical obstacles. One gathers from the complaints about the frightful terrain difficulties that were encountered in keeping the defending forces supplied that this is what their commanders failed to do.

“Eschewing the open road on which the supply trains would be exposed to a superior air force, the Japanese moved equipment through swamps and jungles, and over precipitous heights by sheer manpower. To the Oriental commander, accustomed to using twolegged beasts of burden, this is the obvious thing to do. It means transport in bad country, at which the Japanese are painfully inferior to the Chinese, who move artillery over the roughest country by coolie power 20 miles a day. “But in the conflict with the mechanised Occident, the Japanese are superior. Af£er five years as onlookers, and after seven months of distressing first-hand experience, the Occidental commanders are still surprised into forfeiting one advantage after another by the enemy’s ability to keep moving where trucks and tractors are useless.”

“As Major Eliot suggests, no explanation would be good enough to excuse the loss of Port Moresby. The best manpower in the world is there and also the equipment and air power. The only thing that could cost the United Nations their hold in New Guinea would be lack of adaptability to the tough environment in the quarters where the thinking is supposedly done

If the United Nations cannot get into the habit of dealing with that kind of shortage till after each disastrous, humiliating setback, this will be a long war indeed.”