Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1943. JAPAN ON THE DEFENSIVE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 August 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1943. JAPAN ON THE DEFENSIVE.

TN a measured and moderate statement, General MacArthur has said that Japan has exhausted her fullest resources and is now on the defensive in the Pacific.

This defensive (he added) will yield in proportion as we gather force and definition. When that will be I do not know, but it is certain. I make no prediction as to time or detail. We are doing what we can with what we have.

These observations will carry the more weight and may the more reasonably be regarded as of good promise for the future since it is not bv any means only from the South-West and South Pacific that the defence by Japan of her.wide-ranging conquests, and of her home territory, is menaced.

The land, air and sea forces under General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey have been entrusted with a tremendously difficult and exacting military task and a;*e carrying it out gallantly and well. Already, as General MacArthur has in effect claimed, they have done far more than fight the holding campaign of which so much was heard not very long ago. In New Guinea, Guadalcanal and New' Georgia and in a series of air and sea battles thev have made a substantial contribution to ultima e victory in the Pacific. They have already done a good deal to wreck, undermine and expose to further damaging attack t ie chain of island bases which Japan had hoped to maintain economically as a strong and secure system of forward defences. Tn doing this, the Allied forces have at the same time cut down heavily Japan’s air and naval forces and her merchant shipping.

Taking account of the “very limited” Allied resources to which General MacArthur referred in his statement, all this sums up as a great and splendid achievement and one which must influence heavily the total course of the war in the 1 acme. The campaigns in the South-West ami South Pacific are becoming increasingly costly to Japan. Her defensive positions and her communications alike are being made more vulneiai e to attack.

In addition, however, it is clear that these campaigns have served another and an immensely valuable purpose in absorbing Japanese strength and energies and giving the Allies time and 1 opportunitv to prepare lor formidable attacks in othei areas. The time probably is near at hand when Japan will have to cope as best she mav with land, sea and air attacks on a far greater scale than she'has vet had to face. With the ending of the monsoon, in the northern autumn, operations m Burma directed to the reopening of land communications with China will become practicable.

Other great factors have also to be taken into, account, however. For instance, the “Christian Science Monitor” observed in an editorial not long ago that sea, rather than air power is likely to be the key to new and big developments in the Pacific this year. The naval balance in the Pacific, it went on to state,

has shifted tremendously since Japan challenged the American hold on Guadalcanal last November. The United States Navy has been growing like a mushroom. Not only have the old battleships smas ed at Pearl Harbour been rebuilt, but half a dozen new ones have been added. And the carrier losses have been much more than made up. . . . Add to this the United Nations’ improved naval situation in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and it becomes clear that it is only a matter of time until Japan's badly-stretched sea powei will face impossible odds.

The position meantime is that while results have been achieved in the South-West and South Pacific which must be regarded as brilliant, taking account 'of the relatively small Allied forces engaged, the Allies are, or soon will be, in a position to throw very much greater forces into the scale.