MISSED BY JAPANESE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 March 1943, Page 3

MISSED BY JAPANESE

CHANCE OF EARLY ATTACK ON FIJI WHEN ISLANDS WERE VERY VULNERABLE. FOR WANT OF EQUIPMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, March 15. “The Japanese made a blunder which was second only to their failure to follow up the assault on Pearl Harbour when they did not attack Fijt early in 1942,” says a correspondent of the United Press of America, J. M. Hedstrom, in a dispatch from Suva. “Before the Pacific war New Zealand had a small, well-trained, poorly-equip-ped force. It was increased after the beginning of hostilities, but the real stuff was a long time coming. The first air protection was provided by five Hudson bombers which were sent from New Zealand when -things looked very black. The pilots frankly expected death within a few days or hours. “However, the Japanese inexplicably stopped in the Solomon and Gilbert Islands when a few boatloads of soldiers and a warship or two certainly could have taken and probably could have held Fiji. This would have presented a menace to New Zealand and also the American supply lines to Australia and made the whole Allied strategy in the Pacific more difficult. “Even if they were unable to hold the island the Japanese could have used a fraction of the men and ships they expended on Guadalcanal for destroying the docks, warehouses and other facilities and making them useless for a military base. For many months we were as vulnerable as the underside of a whale, but we remained unmolested, for which we are too thankful to seek the explanation. “Now we can thumb our noses at the enemy and say, ‘Let them come. Britain and the Yanks are ready.’ ”