SIGNS OF TURNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 October 1942, Page 3

SIGNS OF TURNING

IN TIDE OF PACIFIC WAR EVENTS IN SOLOMONS & ELSEWHERE ENEMY UNDER INCREASING' DIFFICULTIES. BUT STILL INTENT ON ACTIVE AGGRESSION. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Despite grave Japanese threats to the American positions in the Solomons a strong feeling is generally evident among observers, both in Australia and the’ United States that the tide of the Pacific war is now turning slowly in favour of the Allies. The Australian Prime Minister (Mr Curtin) indicated that this optimistic assessment applied also to the global war when he told Parliament it was his belief that the Axis was not now making progress on any

front. The cause for which the Allied nations were fighting was being gradually vindicated, he said. “Simultaneously with the steady advance of the Australians in New Guinea, the Americans have already beaten off new attempts to expel them from the Solomons and have retained a marked air superiority, destroying more than 200 Japanese planes at a cost of less than forty of their own,” writes the Sydney “Morning Herald’s” military correspondent today. “The Americans have also turned the tables on the Japanese at the other end of the Pacific. Their forces in the Aleutians are definitely closing in on Japan.” “1942 is the last defensive year for the United Nations,” says Major Eliot, in the New York “Herald-Tribune.” “It is a year in which the United Nations hold fast while America prepares the means of holding the Japanese and Germany encircled by sea and land to prevent them from joining hands or gaining new resources or bases. Building up a world-wide system of protected communications is an essential preliminary to the offensive operations which this system is making possible, and which will decide the war. One of the greatest achievements of the Allies has been the consolidation of the great Pacific route from America to Australia, and the operations in New Guinea are directly connected with the protection of this far-flung artery of power.” “The Rising Sun appears to have gone down again over Attu and Agatu in the Aleutians and there is evidence that the Japanese are finding their Aleutians adventures not worth their cost,” says the New York “HeraldTribune” editorially. “Thousands of miles away, in the tropic jungles of New Guinea, the enemy seem to have made a similar discovery and simply decamped. But one should not over-read-ily yield to the temptation to reduce our estimates of Japanese fighting qualities. An aggressive spirit that tries everything, even in face of risks, that is willing abruptly to cut losses in cne theatre where matters do not go well in order to try somewhere else, can be overdone, but it has great military virtue. Since the Allies reformed their shattered lines, the Pacific war has consisted of a series of Japanese offensive thrusts which have been repelled with heavy Japanese losses, but there has been attrition on our side too. In the Pacific war, from the Andreanov Islands to the Owen Stanley Ranges, strategies cannot be judged until the last scores are in, but boldness is always advantageous, even if “operations do not turn out exactly as planned.” The “New York Times,” commenting on the operations of Australia-based bombers in the Solomons area, says the net result of the damage done to the Kieta Airfield has not been officially estimated, but must have tremendously assisted the United States marines on Guadalcanal’, because the Japanese Air Force has been obviously preparing a counter-attack against Guadalcanal’. In the Aleutians it is reported, recent aerial pictures demonstrate that the Japanese have not abandoned Kiska, but are bending every effort to make the base stronger. Many buildings have been sunk in pits and dummy air- ; fields have been constructed.