Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1943. FEARS THAT ARE JUSTIFIED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1943. FEARS THAT ARE JUSTIFIED

A LMOST simultaneously with the good news that troops of the famous Australian Ninth Division have taken Finsehhafen the third Japanese base in New Guinea captured in less than a month —a London message stated that the Japanese are rushing large reinforcements to Burma to meet an Allied offensive and that both Tokio and Berlin express fears that big Allied thrusts will be made against the Japanese soon in one or more places. It was added that the Japanese expect landings in Sumatra and Malaya as well as a thrust at Burma. It is not at all unlikely that good grounds exist for these Axis anticipations. The rapidly developed operations in which the Japanese have been driven out of Salamaua, Lae, and now Finsehhafen, are an impressive demonstration of what Allied forces, well equipped and supplied and adequately supported by air and sea, are capable of accomplishing. With substantial total forces available, the Allies no doubt are well placed to strike at any one of numerous points, not inching forward island by island, but rather attacking selected objectives with a view to weakening and undermining the whole system of defence organised by the Japanese in South-East Asia and the Pacific. It .was observed recently by the Chungking correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald,” Mr Selwyn Speight, that observers in the Chinese capital pointed out that there was no real reason for supposing that the main attack of the forces commanded by Admiral Lord Mountbatten would be against Burma. It could be directed (he added) against objectives further south —Sumatra or Malaya—or it could be intended to link, or at least coincide with an offensive by General MacArthur from Australia. Such blows, at widely separated points, would, it is emphasised, have many advantages. They would drive wedges into the Japanese arc and threaten her general defences. They would compel Japan to distribute her forces widely, because she could not know where the main thrust was coming. Even if they did not gain a yard of territory, they would bleed Japan's naval strength and her even more vital air strength in preparation for an overwhelming offensive later. The Allies can afford the material losses inevitable in such interim attacks. Japan cannot. Although the tremendous air pounding to which Japanese-occu-pied ports, bases and transport routes in Burma have been subjected for months past no doubt is intended to be a preparation for further action, there is no obvious reason why the Allies, even in the immediate future, should, concentrate their efforts only, or perhaps even mainly, on the reoccupation of Burma and the reopening of the Burma Road. Their essential aim presumably will be to impose a maximum strain on Japan’s total lighting power and resources, by whatever means may be open to that end. Against recent suggestions that differences of opinion have arisen or are likely to arise in regard to the relative importance of Allied commands and command areas in the Pacific may be set some observations made a couple of months ago by Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet. In a broad review of the war against Japan in the Pacific, Admiral King emphasised several times that it was proceeding everywhere according to “a concerted plan of operations.”