BEGINNING OF END?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1942, Page 3

BEGINNING OF END?

JAPANESE NAVAL STRENGTH MUCH DEPLETED IN PACIFIC. BUT MAIN BATTLE FLEET STILL INTACT. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 23. “It is difficult to avoid the temptation to see the beginning of the end of Japanese sea power,” writes a Washington military correspondent. Various authoritative estimates place the number of Japanese warships and naval transports sunk at between 150- and 200. In addition about 160 enemy merchantmen are calculated to have been lost.

It is believed, judging by the fact that the enemy has not yet used any new battleships in action, that Japan’s main battle fleet is still intact. But the maintenance of Japanese aggressive strategy in the Pacific requires the extensive use of well-balanced task forces, and particularly in certain vital categories the Japanese naval strength has now been so depleted as to make the assemblage of effective task forces almost impossible. “Japan’s irreplaceable naval losses point the ultimate way io victory in the Pacific,” declares the “Sydney Morning Herald’s” military commentator. “Japan’s carrier strength has been so decimated that she must rely upon seaplane tenders and converted liners. She appears to have lost most of her cruisers, her losses in the heavy 10,000ton class being greater than in light cruisers, Japan cannot have more than 19 cruisers left, and a number of these are known to be severely damaged, leaving only a handful of cruisers on actual service.

“Japan is, therefore, in no position to send all her battleships to sea with the necessary ancillary protection. Her capacity to dispatch task forces of the type that is deemed most serviceable under Pacific conditions can scarcely be adequate to protect her military activities ranging from Burma to the Solomons and up north to the Aleutians. It is highly significant that Japan used no aircraft-carriers in the latest Solomons battle, and her cruiser dilemma appears to be insoluble. Japan must rely upon her battleships and her destroyers (of which more than onethird have been lost) to do work for which they were never intended and under conditions which favour still further losses.” COMMITTED TO LOSSES. American commentators are lengthening their original estimate of three weeks as the minimum time which Japan will need to organise fresh attacks on the southern Solomons. They point out that when Japan moves again she must do so in tremendous strength —when another defeat might be disastrous. But the Solomons campaign has shown that Japan must either hazard her naval strength in the outposts or lose her positions by default. 'Thus, Japan is committed to a policy which seems likely to destroy ncr naval power. , J . Informed observers believe that only one factor can now tip the scale or the sea war in the Pacific in Japan’s favour, and that is the element of fortune or unforeseen circumstance, which can never be ruled out of military strategy. But fortune, which favoured Japan at Pearl Harbour and on many subsequent occasions, has a way of distributing her favours, of which the enemy has already had more than a fail* share.