Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1943. SPEEDING UP AGAINST JAPAN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1943. SPEEDING UP AGAINST JAPAN.

THERE are various indications that, assurances given of late that offensive action against Japan is to be expedited and that considerable additional resources will be brought to bear upon these operations represent a declaration of serious purpose on the part of the Allied nations concerned. The latest of these indications appears in the news, received yesterday, that Allied forces have landed on the shores of the Iluon Gulf, between Lae and Salamaua, and that, in General MacArthur’s words, “the investment of Lae has begun.” The scale of the undertaking is suggested in the statement that General MacArthur is personally commanding the new offensive, while the land forces are under the command of General Sir Thomas Blarney. Early reports go to show that in this powerful blow an effective surprise was sprung on the Japanese in New Guinea and that in attendant air operations a large formation of enemy bombers and fighters was defeated with heavy losses—2l Japanese aircraft being shot down at a cost of two Allied machines. Encouraging evidence is thus supplied that in the area north of Australia, as well as in other Pacific and adjacent regions considerably increased resources have been placed at the disposal of the Allied commanders. It has been more or les taken for granted that the principal Allied blows against Japan were likely to be struck elsewhere than along the covering chain of island defences she has organised and developed over a distance of 1,200 miles or more, extending across the South-AVest and South Pacific notably by action in and from Burma and in naval and air attacks on the enemy’s vastly extended and diverging ocean communications, but the indicated scale of the operations now launched in New Guinea suggests that action against the island arc has no unimportant place in Allied offensive plans. Taking account amongst other things of the preparations known to be in train for action against Burma and of American naval plans, of which there was a positive though fragmentary hint the other day in the naval and air attack on Marcus Island, about a thousand miles south of Tokio, there does not seem to be any doubt that a phase of the war in the Pacific has opened in which Japan will find herself called upon to meet formidable attacks'in a number of quarters simultaneously. Given the adequate resources presumably now available, there should be, from the Allied standpoint, considerable advantages in attacking Japan at one and the same time in vital parts of her island arc of advanced defences, on her extended lines of ocean communication, and by land and sea in the areas she has occupied in South-Eastern Asia. In what has already been accomplished against the Japan'ese in New Guinea and the Solomons and in an extended series of air and naval battles, including the decisive Midway engagement, there are good grounds for confidence in the ultimate outcome. It is also clear, however, that the task of bringing Japan to unconditional surrender is likely to be arduous and exacting. The militarists who exercise a despotic and virtually undisputed sway over her people are unsurpassed in grim ferocity and fanaticism and in the lengths to which they are prepared to go in exhausting the resources of their nation in Avar. Of late they have been using even admissions of defeat as a means of whip ping the people over whom they rule into a new frenzy of selfsacrifice. As yet they continue to get the response they demand, and it is obvious that nothing less than overwhelming and complete defeat will destroy their evil power.