RESERVES EXPENDED?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1943, Page 4

RESERVES EXPENDED?

JAPAN’S AIR STRENGTH GREEN PILOTS OPERATING. ALLIED PROSPECTS BRIGHTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) CHUNGKING, March 1. Interviewed by the United Press correspondent, General Robert Martin Chennault said that he was more optimistic than he had been for a year. He said that Japan’s air strength was facing two bottlenecks, pilot training and plane production. Her aircraft reserves already appear to be exhausted. \Men in high places now realise that there is an outside chance that the Pacific war can be finished in 1943. Measuring his words carefully, he said: “The prospects of carrying the war to Japan are definitely brighter! Once our whole effort is turned to the Pacific we can defeat Japan in a comparatively short time. Enemy planes shot down recently were apparently in service direct from the factory. The latest Japanese air raids are apparently designed to give green pilots experience, both circumstances indicating that the reserves are expended. On the other hand, the United Nations’ air strength is steadily increasing, and will continue to be strengthened.” He pointed out that our fliers now operate over Burma almost without opposition. He disclosed that Japan 4S intensifying her propaganda efforts in China, dropping leaflets picturing Americans undermining the Chinese morale and intimating that Japan and China would soon reach a negotiated peace. He said the Japanese were rushing defence work in the Shanghai and Hong Kong areas. He expressed the opinion that the Japanese would attack in Central China with the object of preventing the American air force from operating in that area. BURMA ROAD BASE RAIDED BY U.S.A. PLANES. (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) CHUNGKING, March 1. After a month’s hold-up because of bad weather, American bombers renewed their operation against the Japanese. They dropped tons of demolition and anti-personnel bombs on a warehouse and barracks at Mangshih, the Burma Road base thirty miles west of the Salween River.