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Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 October 1942, Page 3

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SOLOMONS NAVAL BATTLE REPLY TO ENEMY PROPAGANDA SPECULATION IN UNITED STATES. HEAVY JAPANESE AIR LOSSES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) NEW-YORK, October 21. “The latest Navy communique, indicating that the Solomons battle has not yet been joined, is based on recent reports, and presumably serves as a reply to continued Axis radio reports that a great battle is raging in the Solomons,” says the “New York Times” Washington correspondent. “United States Navy officials, however, decline to discuss this propaganda. “It appears likely that the Japanese may have indicated to their Axis allies that a major attack was under way on Guadalcanar, after which their land assault was checked by the success of the American bombings of their , troop concentrations and supply dumps. , “Observers noted the quick announcement of the loss of the destroyers Meredith and O’Brien as indicating the inauguration of a new Navy policv. In such matters previously news of the sinkings had been withheld for as long as three months.” The Washington correspondent of the New York “P.M.” says that American air experts regard the disproportionate Japanese losses in bombers and fighters in the Solomons as an infallible indication' of a vital weakness in Japan’s war strength. They argue that casualties have so thinned the ranks of first-line Japanese pilots that inexperienced flyers are now being sent into battle. “In the air battle last Saturday the enemy Ipst almost 50 per cent of the raiding force, which is unprecedented in aerial warfare, and far beyond the allowance of expenditure. The Japanese have lost over 350 planes so far in the battle for Guadalcanar—a number which is far out of proportion to the scale of the engagement, “In spite of the American air superiority in the Guadalcanar area,” “P.M.55 continues, the Japanese are risking a battle fleet, which bears out the deduction that the Japanese cannot rely on their aviation to help wrest the island from the Allies. Airmen declare that there is evidence that the Japanese Air Force has cut down the period of training for aviators from 10 months to six or less in order to increase the flow of fighting pilots. If Japanese aircraft production . is maintained at the comparatively high rate of 500 planes a month, it will be impossible for the Japanese to man the planes at the rate they have been losinp- first-line pilots in the past few months. They are confessing this weakness in their war machine by placing inexperienced flyers in the important battle raging round Guadalcanar.”