SERIOUS DILEMMA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 November 1943, Page 4

SERIOUS DILEMMA

FACED BY JAPANESE IN PACIFIC NEED OF FULL-POWERED NAVAL ACTION. IN DEFENCE OF ISLAND BASES. (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received This Day, Noon.) SYDNEY, This Day. Evidently disinclined to hazard a major sea engagement with the growing naval might of the United States, the Japanese now face a serious dilemma. By a continued, unchallenged use of their sea power, the Americans can continue to strike telling blows against Japan's outer periphery. The military correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald” today points out that the cheaply-won Gilbert Islands lead naturally to the Marshalls and to Nauru and Ocean islands.

Progressively, aided by such air bases as Betio, the Americans can converge stage by stage upon the enemy’s two bases of Truk and Rabaul. J “The Japanese yielded the Gilberts rather than hazard a naval engagement—and this week’s events can be repeated almost indefinitely,” the correspondent writes. “The question immediately arises: How long will the Japanese permit this process of strangulation without a counter-attack? It is evident that the only effective form of retaliation will be by the use of sea power, However strong the enemy may be at certain points of the island perimeter, and however exhausting the fight may be to drive him out by land, the new Allied use of sea power gives a changed sense of values to the strategical situation.” INDIAN OCEAN FLANK. The correspondent points out that, with American seapower already opening up roads to Tokio from the east, the Japanese dilemma will be made further complicated when British naval reinforcements allow of serious operations on their Western Indian Ocean flank as well. The Japanese command will then have to decide whether to meet both attacks at once or to concentrate against one. The nature of the enemy’s dilemma is seen in Admiral Nimitz’s carefully calculated insistence upon the imperative need for a strategical concentration of naval strength in the Pacific war. Urgency is also given to Japan’s problem by the repeated failures of her light naval foi'ces in the Solomons.

The “Sydney Morning Herald” war correspondent in this area says the four Japanese destroyers sunk on Thursday morning' were attempting to reach Buka, in Northern Bougainville, probably in an attempt to evacuate certain personnel from there. The force was intercepted by an American destroyer squadron commanded by Captain “Thirty-One Knot” Burke, who chased the fleeing enemy warships towards Rabaul. An admiral said latex of Burke: “He would have taken his destroyers right into Rabaul if necessary.” The battle lasted for two hours and was fought in the light of the moon and of star shells arid flares dropped by planes.