JAPANESE SHIPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1943, Page 3

JAPANESE SHIPPING

AND ALLIED AIR OFFENSIVE POSITION IN SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC. STATEMENT BY OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 19. Powerful concentrations of Japanese shipping extend from Surabaya, Java, to Rabaul, the official spokesman at General MacArthur’s headquarters declared today. He described as a “grave fallacy” any belief that the heavy destruction of enemy shipping by the Allied naval and air forces had yet seriously weakened Japanese capacity for sea transport. The spokesman's warning statement followed a record day of air activity in the South-West Pacific yesterday, when General MacArthur’s bombers were over 14 enemy bases. His planes are keeping up what has been termed a “small-scale version of the round-the-clock offensive in western Europe.” Much of this activity, however, serves primarily for reconnaissance with the purpose of enabling the closest possible check to be kept on Japanese preparations and movements. “In the South-West Pacific there has been no indication of any lack of enemy commercial shipping,” said the spokesman. “For months from Rabaul on one flank to Surabaya on the other, dangerous shipping concentrations have been reported by our air reconnaissance. At Rabaul alone more than 300,000 tons of shipping has frequently been noted. The distance of these enemy grouping points from our airfields either secures them from attack or, as in the case of Rabaul, limits our attacks to night blows." The spokesman was replying to questions by war correspondents concerning authoritative American estimates that Japanese shipping losses totalled about 1,800,000 tons. “Unfortunately,” said the spokesman, “against this figure must be placed the 475,000 tons estimated as captured or otherwise obtained from neutrals and non-belligerents, . and 450,000 tons of new shipping estimated to have been built by Japan herself since the outbreak of the war. This Would result in a net loss of 875,000 tons. “Some pressure on Japanese commercial shipping undoubtedly exists, but it should be attributed not only to these losses, but also in a large measure to the ever-increasing demands for ships for the consolidation and exploitation of the vast resources of the enormous empire which the enemy has seized.” The maintenance of an unremitting air offensive against Japanese shipping and bases is being stressed in the United States as making the strongest possible case for the allocation of additional air power to the southern Pacific. Admiral Halsey’s aircraft have also been very active, making 90 raids on enemy bases in the past 30 days. GENERAL KENNEY'S MISSION. “Nobody here has said General MacArthur could not have more planes,” is reported to have, been the only comment made by LieutenantGeneral Kenney, now in Washington, after his interview with President Roosevelt. American war commentators are t unanimous that the extraordinary skill with which Lieutenant-General Kenney employed his limited air resources is his best argument. •“Lieutenant-General Kenney did not come to President Roosevelt merely pleading for aid to save someone,” writes Joseph Harsch in the “Christian Science Monitor.’ “His case is that the Bismarck Sea battle produced the destruction of 22 Japanese ships for the loss of four Allied planes. He is expected to have said something like this to the President: ‘You want to sink Japanese shipping because it is Japan’s weakest spot. Just give me a few more planes and I will do it for you. There are about 60 Japanese ships at Rabaul right now. It is the ideal place to catch them.’ ”