INDIA AS BASE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 November 1942, Page 4

INDIA AS BASE

FOR ATTACK ON JAPANESE EARLY ACTION LIKELY ACCORDING TO AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT. OUTLOOK GREATLY CHANGED. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) NEW YORK, November 29.. General Wavell will soon be in a position to assume the initiative on the India-Burma frontier, says I'/lr Joseph Harsch, writing in the “Christian Science Monitor.” Mr Harsch says recent events in Russia, Africa and the Solomons have suddenly elevated India and Burma to the world’s most important passive front, transforming India from a plum ripe for easy plucking into a promising offensive base. Hitler’s defeat in Russia removed the danger of the Japanese and Germans joining hands via India, while Japan's naval defeats in the Pacific have made impossible a seaborne Japanese invasion of India. Now, for the first time since the Japanese conquered Burma, General Wavell is free to concentrate on the Japanese front. The Japanese realise that they could better afford to lose Rabaul than to have the Burma Road reopened. That is the true reason for Japanese troop and air concentrations in Burma. It is not beyond possibility that they will shift air and naval weight from the Pacific to Bengal in order to accept battle with General Wavell, who will soon be in a position to assume the initiative. __