WAVE OF CONJECTURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1943, Page 3

WAVE OF CONJECTURE

REGARDING JAPANESE PLANS ENIGMA IN SOUTH PACIFIC. POSSIBILITY OF BIG NAVAL BATTLE. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, February 10. General To jo’s announcement of the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal has sent a wave of speculation rippling over the Allied world. Military experts are asking whether the move is a feint rather than an admission of defeat, and, if so, where the indefatigable Japanese will strike next. So far there is no irfdication that the enemy intends to surrender the strategicallyimportant northern Solomons area, though the possibility of such a move is reported to have been mentioned by the United States Navy Secretary, Colonel Knox. An official of the United States Navy Department today spoke of the opposing fleets and air forces as “continuing to shape up in the South Pacific,” but no further inkling has been given of the moves in the area. . “The inscrutable Japanese has never been a greater enigma than at present,” says an Australian military writer. “While he has been withdrawing from Guadalcanal he has been J busy building a great new airfield at ) Munda, only 140 miles away. His bases in the Central and South Pacific are crammed with men and equipment.” American naval experts did not expect the Japanese naval strength based at Truk, Shortland and Rabaul to be employed in any full-scale, direct attempt to relieve the harassed enemy forces on Guadalcanal. Anxious to end the debilitating war of attrition in this area, Japan has been expected to direct her sea and air forces exclusively against the American sea power. QUEST FOR INFORMATION. I The purpose of the preliminary air and naval skirmishing and reconnaissance during the past 12 days has been to discover the numbers and types of Admiral Halsey’s ships, whose dispositions are believed to remain successfully concealed. The time and place for joining of what may be the war’s biggest naval battle depends upon whether the Japanese, having studied the information which they are now trying to glean, decide that the occasion offers an acceptable risk. If the Japanese believe the odds are against them, they may withdarw inside their defensive arc and await a more favourable opportunity to launch a new offensive. Charles Hurd, the “New York Times” military correspondent, says" that the United States Navy is well prepared for the battle. He adds that, while ordinarily loquacious, Admiral Halsey is a man highly capable of keeping his own counsel when he smells a fight, and that the present paucity of news is likely to continue till the outcome has been decided. The Allied air force, says Mr Hurd, has been doing its utmost to assist the navy to meet the Japanese fleet on advantageous terms. The repeated bombing forays against the enemy aerodromes in the Solomons would be designed to deprive the Japanese of their umbrella of air power under which surface units might engage in a slugging match suited to the heavier enemy fleet. The New York “Herald-Tribune” stresses the moral blow to Japan in the loss of Guadalcanal. This, says the paper, exceeds even the strategic value of the island. The news of its abandonment on the ground that it is not worth a continued loss of ships and , planes is likely to seep through the ’ Japanese armed forces from the northern Solomons to Burm*, with an inevitable deterioration in that fanatical faith which has been Japan’s greatest military asset. It is estimated that the Solomons campaign has cost the Japanese 50,000 dead, 165 ships sunk or damaged and 760 planes destroyed. The admitted Allied losses have been 29 warships sunk, including two aircraft-carriers, and eight cruisers. JAPAN FEELING PINCH. '“The manpower loss is trifling to the Japanese, whose youth are coming of ' age at the rate of 1000 a day,” com- \ ments Archibald Steele in the Chicago “News.” “But Japan is evidently feel- i ing the pinch.in ships and planes.” Most commentators warn that the :

South Pacific situation is little less serious because of the enemy evacuation of Guadalcanal. Mr Hurd declares that an infliction of heavy losses on Admiral Halsey’s forces would imperil the Allied bases in the New Hebrides, Samoa and Fiji and place the American-South Pacific supply line (to New Zealand and Australia) in jeopardy. ' While it is belieevd that the Japanese fleet will be repulsed, the entire Hearst Press, emphasising the gravity of the issues involved, reiterates its strong conviction that the United Nations’ global strategists should now allocate greater strength to the Pacific—where lighter Allied forces by good fortune as well as by good management have so far succeeded in beating back a more powerful enemy.