Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1943. ACTION AGAINST JAPAN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1943. ACTION AGAINST JAPAN.

opinion lias been expressed by the Australian Minister of External Affairs (Dr Evatt) that things are going to be much more unpleasant for the Japanese in the Pacific, not only on land and in the air, but also on the sea, than they have been lor some time. This is fully in keeping with a good deal that has been said by American commentators during the last month or two. The idea is widely entertained that Japan is to a considerable extent reduced to an attempt to defend her conquests, with her resources, particularly of air strength and sea transport under heavy strain.

At the same time grounds are seen for believing that the Allies, without prejudice to the policy of giving priority to the offensive against Germany, have forces at their disposal which will enable them before long to take such action against Japan as will make an end of any question of merely fighting a holding campaign in the Pacific until the Axis Powers in Europe have been overthrown. The reopening of the Mediterranean in itself has of course simplified and lightened to an appreciable extent Allied problems of supply and transport to India and the Pacific.

As to the lines on which action may develop, nothing is likely to be said with authority in anticipation of events, the more so since the Allies are to an extent in a position to pick and choose their points of attack. Dr. Evatt no doubt is right in his suggestion that the enemy has to take serious account of the possibilities of naval action as well as of land and ail’ action.

It has been noted of late, for example, that even if some large and powerful new units have been added to the Japanese battleship fleet, the United States probably has a superiority of something like fifty per cent in battleships, several of these being of the very latest and most formidable type. Japan also is heavily outclassed by the United States alone in cruisers amt destroyers and in the highly important factor of aircraftcarriers.

While developments in the South and South-West Pacific, the Aleutians and elsewhere all have their more or less important bearing on the general outlook in the Pacific war, there is much to support the assumption that a cardinal aim in taking decisive offensive action against Japan must be to reopen the Burma supply line and, in the words of a recent commentator, “to bring both the manpower and the geographic opportunities of China to bear on Japan. ”

Apart from the obvious desirability of arming and equipping the Chinese armies which have given a gallant account of themselves of late in the Yangtse valley and in other areas, and of making the greatest possible us(j of Chinese territory as a base for Allied attack on Japan, powerful armies have been trained and organised in India. They are said now to number about .1,500,000 men.

According to apparently well-informed authorities, effective action by these armies must be dependent upon major landing operations at the mouths of these Burmese rivers running into 1 the Bay of Bengal. This may modify the extept to which Allied action in Burma is contingent on the weather —particularly the necessity of waiting until the end of the rainy season before undertaking an advance through jungle and mountain country. There is a fairly general expectation, however, that if the position in regard to shipping and other factors remains as favourable as now seems likely, a campaign on a large scale for the recovery of Burma and the restoration of unimpeded contact with China is likely to be opened a few months hence in the northern autumn. This, of course, leaves open the possibility of telling blows being struck meantime against Japan at any one or more of a number of points in the immense Pacific theatre —blows all of which might well take their place in a co-ordin-ated offensive plan.