Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1942. MAJOR BUT NOT DECISIVE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 November 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1942. MAJOR BUT NOT DECISIVE.

■ "I — "■■■"■—■■— some details yet to be filled in, as information stands at time of 'writing, it is already very fully demonstrated that in naval and air fighting extending over several days, in the region of the Solomon Islands, the United States Navy and attendant air squadrons have won the greatest naval, victory of the war. Tn the words of the Comamnder-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, Admiral Nimitz, “the strongest Japanese attempt to date to recapture Guadalcanal has been completely frustrated by the aggressive action of Vice-Admiral Halsey and his forces.”

On top of the heavy losses of -warships and transports she had already suffered in the Solomons, Japan has now lost eleven warships, including a battleship and three heavy cruisers, and twelve transports, eight of them packed with troops. Die Americans have made it more than ever manifest that they are able not only to assemble powerful striking forces, but to .use them with shattering effect. Bearing in mind that the United States and its Allies are building up their forces at a rate and on a scale Japan cannot hope remotely to rival, the prospect opened is one the Asiatic Axis Power may well regard with dread.

An observation by the military commentator of the “New York Times,” that the American position in the Solomons unquestionably has improved, plainly docs not err on the side of exaggeration. As against the tremendous losses they suffered —losses said to include 20,000 to 40,000 troops in the transports sent to the bottom—the Japanese appear to have been able to do little to strengthen their land forces on Guadalcanal. Their continuing problems of supply and reinforcement in this area obviously have been accentuated heavily.

The American victory has been summed up modestly by the United States Secretary for the Navy (Colonel Knox) as “major but indecisive.” It is no doubt wise to assume, as Colonel. Knox says, that the Japanese will try again, but the outlook in the Solomons, and in the Pacific at the widest view, plainly.has been made darker for the Japanese and brighter for the Allies.

DARLAN’S CHANGE-OVER.

“SURPRISE has been caused in London,” a cablegram .received yesterday stated, “by the announcement from Algiers that Admiral Darlan is to head a French North African Government.” This surprise is in every way warranted. The Darlan affair now taking shape in French North Africa is one of the most astonishing things that has happened in the Avar. Until he was ousted by Laval not very long ago, Admiral Darlan was a particularly active member of the Vichy administration, exercising an authority only second to that of Marshal Petain. At the same time he made clear on many occasions his bitter enmity to Britain and her Allies, and has been classed also —his membership of the Vichy regime providing all necessary evidence on the subject—as a relentless enemy of. French democracy.

As to Admiral Darlan’s attitude to the Allies, it may be remembered that in March last he threatened to convoy I* rench foodships “in order to protect them against the British”—a threat commonly regarded at the time as a step towards declaring that France was compelled to co-operate with the Axis navies. He was described freely as head ol a clique pushing France in the direction of all-out collaboration with the Axis. This is the same Admiral Darlan who now says that he will form a great French colonial army “to take up the fight for liberty alongside our old ally, Britain, and our new ally, the United States.”

The announcement from Algiers that Admiral Darlan is to head a French North African Government of course is very far from implying of necessity that Britain is prepared to recognise that Government. Another message from London yesterday stated that British diplomatic advisers had gone to North Africa to define Admiral. Darlan’s position. The matter evidently is one to be handled with care and caution and the demands thus implied will be met if Britain observes the same discretion in dealing with Admiral Darlan as she has observed in dealing with the Fighting French leader, General de Gaulle. '

Britain has welcomed General de Gaulle and his followers as allies and has entered readily into warlike co-operation with them, but she has not recognised the Fighting French movement as a French Government. This attitude —one that most certainly should not be modified in favour of Admiral Darlan—finds its full justification in the fact that, the establishment of a French Government, plainly is a matter tor the people of France and tliat until they are again free to express their will, no one has any right to usurp their authority, or to connive at such a usurpation. _____