“JAPAN’S NEXT STAB”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1942, Page 4

“JAPAN’S NEXT STAB”

SPECULATION IN UNITED STATES POSSIBILITY OF DESPERATE ATTEMPT. AGAINST HAWAII OR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. (Special Australian Correspondent.) • (Received This Day, 1.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The lull in large-scale Japanese operations in the Pacific may be the prelude to some major offensive, according to Washington observers. Responsible quarters have conjectured that the current absence of major Japanese military undertakings may even presage an attack on Hawaii, or perhaps simultaneous blows at Alaska and Southern California. “The belief in the possibility of such attempts, says the Washington correspondent of the "New York Times,” is based on the following reasons: —Firstly, Japan, for home morale, badly needs another victory; secondly, if Japan feels that the Axis in Europe is actually crumbling, her leaders might risk everything on a victory in the Pacific; thirdly, America's present preoccupation with the African campaign offers Japan an opportunity which might not recur. “Japanese attacks on Hawaii- or the continental United States would seem suicidal, but nevertheless they might appeal to Japan. She apparently at present is husbanding her shipping and aviation, and this is interpreted as foreshadowing some new offensive move. Not even the best-informed military experts here attempt to predict Japan’s next move, but this we do know —that, because either of overconfidence or desperation, the possibility is increasing rather than diminishing that Japan's next big stab may easily be due east, across the Pacific, rather than into the spongy mass ■ of Asia.” SOLOMONS & NEW GUINEA. The offensive-defensive war waged so successfully by the Allied forces in the Solomons and New Guinea is causing the world’s military commentators to ask whether Japan may be prepared to regard these as temporary stalemate operations, in which her present holdings can be maintained pending decisive actions elsewhere in the Pacific. The Allied forces in the South Pacific are regarded as having accomplished miracles with the strength at their command, but Japan may feel that her garrisons in the area are able to fight delaying actions until, by some bold stroke, she has accomplished the miracle of establishing Pacific supremacy. Australian opinion, however, is that it is now too late for Japan to succeed in any overwhelming surprise move in the Pacific. The “Sydney Morning Herald’s” military correspondent deciares today that, following the disastrous series of sea and air- battles in the South Pacific, Jrßjan has already lost the tactical struggle for Guadalcanal. “The island must henceforth be considered primarily as an American striking basee,” declares the “Herald” writer, “and the best the Japanese can now hope to do is to extricate some of their men. Their attempt to improvise a base from which fighters can be used at Munda. in New Georgia, shows that they are still prepared to continue the struggle; but the scattering of last Wednesday’s convoy and American domination of the skies would indicate that persistence in such a policy can only lead to'further Japanese shipping losses, ovei- and above the 128 ships sunk or damaged to date in the fighting around the Solomons.”