Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1943. SOLDIERS ON FURLOUGH.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 July 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1943. SOLDIERS ON FURLOUGH.

j\TEW ZEALANDERS are not in general a very emotional people, but the return on furlough of a large party of longservice men of our Second Expeditionary Force is an even to stir the country to its depths. Impressive proof of this was given in Wellington yesterday and is being paralleled today and will be during the next day or two as the men who have earned so well a period of relief from the toils and dangeis of war reach their home districts. By their deeds and achievements in Greece and Crete, in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, our soldiers have made the name of the New Zealand Division known and honoured throughout the world, but it is perhaps not too much to hope that they will value still more the pride and gratitude they have inspired in their own country, not only in the hearts of their kinsfolk, but in those of all Now Zealanders. Since these soldiers on furlough will be returning before long to the fighting fronts, their present homecoming is not as joyous as will be the final return of all our fighting forces when victory has been won, but it is at least a happy and pleasant interlude between the acts of the grim drama of war. While thought must be given at a time like this to those who remain at the front, to those who arc captive in the hands of the enemy, and above all to those who will never return, it is possible to . regard the welcome to the furlough draft as an earnest of still better things to come at a time, it may now be hoped, not too far distant. One thing that perhaps should be wished for the men now granted a spell of leave in their homeland, which they will enjoy best with their kinsfolk and friends, is that they should not be ’plagued too much with public functions and speech-making. It may be hoped, however, that contact with these veterans will deepen in the hearts of all responsible members of the population a determination that in the aftermath of this war the Dominion shall discharge honestly and faithfully, in the full extent that is possible, its obligations to the members of its fighting forces,, to whose service and sacrifices it owes so much. PROGRESS IN THE PACIFIC. yyi-ITLE the Director of the United States Office of War Information (Mr Elmer Davis) is content, to say that the Allied landing forces in New Guinea and New Georgia are making slow but ’ satisfactory progress, some other American commentators are advancing theories and suggestions which appear to take little account of the realities of the situation in the Pacific. In a cablegram received yesterday, for example, the “Wall Street Journal” was quoted as stating that:— The new Pacific drive is a test of the island by island campaign. If New Guinea and Rabaul topple within from four to six months, the theory will have been proved. Otherwise the Allied strategy will be limited to direct punches against Japan from China. This means retaking Burma first. This is at once a strange distortion and an over-simplification of the problems raised in the war against Japan. It ignores some particularly definite statements made by the leaders of the Allied nations —amongst them that of President Roosevelt that the Allies have no intention of inching their way, island by island, in the Pacific and Mr Churchill’s more recent observation that: A notable part in the war against Japan must of course be played by the large armies and by the air and naval forces now marshalled by Great Britain on the eastern frontiers of India. There is in any case no visible justification for regarding the present operations in the Pacific and an advance through Burma into China as more or less opposed alternatives—for assuming, as the “Wall Street Journal” seems to suggest, that everything depends meantime on the Pacific drive and that if this fails, the Allies will turn to an advance through Burma as the next best thing. It is surely more reasonable and much more in accordance with realities to regard the Pacific drive and the projected advance through Burma, for which great preparations have been and are being made, as co-ordinated parts, and not of necessity the only parts, of a great strategic scheme. Given fair fortune with regard to those incalculable chances of war of which Mr Churchill has often spoken, an advance through Burma, when it is undertaken, may facilitate the extension of the Pacific drive to a degree that otlierwisO would hardly be practicable, and at .the same time may itself be facilitated not a little by the extension of the Pacific drive. There is such a thing as compelling an enemy, particularly one who, like Japan, has made the most of an exceptional opportunity to engage in rapid, easy and extensive conquests, to spread and strain his resources to the breaking point. It has to be taken into account in the Pacific, as in the European theatres, that the resources of the-Allies are so expanding that they may hope to be in a position to attack their enemy at a number of points simultaneously. They are doing this already in the Pacific to a limited, but far from negligible extent, and may before long be able to do it to a far greater extent. The best campaigning season in Burma will arrive a few months hence, and it is by no means impossible that land and air operations in and through Burma at that time may fit in very well with an intensified drive against the Japanese island arc in the Pacific. Neither is it unlikely that when the time comes for the Allies to undertake action on a great scale against their Asiatic enemy, much of the detail strength of his defensive organisation may count for comparatively little on account- of the weakening of his total strategic position.