ATTACK ON JAPAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 January 1943, Page 3

ATTACK ON JAPAN

AT EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY FULL. USE OF NAVAL & AIR POWER. URGED BY FORMER FEDERAL PREMIER. (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. “We shall defeat Japan, when the air hand from China and the naval hand from the Pacific reach out and take her by the throat. When that time comes, Japan’s nerveless fingers will fall weakly away from Malaya, from the Philippines and from the Netherlands East Indies, and their gropings towards Australia will cease. Burma must be recaptured, the gateway to China reopened and an attack on a grand scale developed as near as possible to the .China-Japan frontier.” —This view of the strategy necessary to defeat Japan is given by a member of the Australian War Council and former Prime Minister, Mr R. G. Menzies. Such an Australian assessment of China’s vital role in the war against Japan throws into relief the current American consideration of China’s position during the recent period of the Pacific defensive. The “Washington Post” alleges that some of General Chiang Kai-snek’s associates hold the view that Britain and America, if exhausted by the conflict with Hitler, > might be prone to negotiate “for peace” with Japan, in which the main loser /would be China. DEMANDS IN UNITED STATES. The entire Hearst Press increasingly condemns the “get Hitler first” policy and champions the cause of more arms for China. The Hearst papers declare that in the Pacific United States forces are so thinly spread that they are unable to do more than inch ahead against Japan, when they should be able to drive forward. “The Administration must realise that America’s own existence is now at stake in the Pacific,” urges one featured article, claiming that Japan’s strength is still being underestimated. Constantine Brown, the “Washington Star” columnist, says that General MacArthur, as well as Admiral Halsey, has received recent reinforcements, but that these are merely sufficient for the continuation of the “offensive defensive” strategy which presumably will continue until the Axis is smashed in Europe. Meantime American war observers are awaiting news of one of the South Pacific “characteristically brief but brilliant” flare-ups. Further Japanese attacks on the American-held Solomons are being generally prophesied.