PACIFIC CAMPAIGN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1943, Page 3

PACIFIC CAMPAIGN

ADMIRAL NIMITZ BROADCASTS ENEMY TURNED BACK. MAJOR OFFENSIVE IMMINENT (British Official Wireloss.) RUGBY, February 28. We are now at the crossroads of the Pacific campaign, declared Admiral S. W. Nimitz, broadcasting tonight from “Somewhere in the Pacific.” Admiral Nimitz added that through the unmatched devotion of the men who had held the lines in the trying months of the past year, we had turned back the enemy in the South Pacific. The loss of Guadalcanal marked the first defeat of tha kind suffered by the Japanese in modern times. From now on the going would be tougher, as we undertook the task of driving the enemy from the prepared positions which he had been building in the conquered areas. It was our job to destroy his ships and planes and neutralise his island strong-points as we drove toward the positions whence w? could reach, with our shells and bombs, his industrial nerve centres. DRIVE FOR POSITIONS INTERPRETATION OF REMARKS WASHINGTON, February 28. The Associated Press of America says that Admiral Nimitz’s broadcast indicates that American naval forces in the Pacific are about ready to undertake a drive for positions from which Japanese industrial centres can be brought under direct and devastating attack. Naval circles have noted with interest Admiral Nimitz’s reference to shelling, which seems to presage a naval bombardment of vulnerable Japanese coastal cities by heavy guns of the American Fleet. The “New York Times,” in an editorial, says: “Admiral Nimitz’s statement supplements General MacArthur’s announcement discounting the islandhopping strategy and also President Roosevelt’s promise of bombing raids against Japan. The strategic concepts behind these announcements must remain a military secret, but Admiral Nimitz makes it plain that a major’ offensive against Japan is imminent, indicating that the United Nations have now established both naval and air superiority in the Pacific.