WHAT THEY CABLED

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 139, 20 February 1942, Page 7

WHAT THEY CABLED

American Correspondents’ Views On New Zealand And The War OTH H. R. Knickerbocker and Joseph C. Harsch cabled their papers trom Wellington, reporting on the establishment of -the line of communication "from factory to battlefront,’ and both said that though Japan had won the first blow, she had lost the battle for those supply lines, her first serious reverse. As promised by both men as they dashed away from Wellington, "The Listener" was able to examine copies of their cables to Boston and Chicago, and now prints a summary of each message. The "cablese"’ in which such men write might have added "local colour" to our story, but not everyone can read it with ease, so the extracts have been filled out:

HARSCH described his arrival in a U.S. destroyer: "New Zealanders around first rubbed their eyes, then waved their hats at the Stars and Stripes. The first unit of Leary’s forces to reach New Zealand had arrived even before his appointment was announced." He said that Japan was presumably relying on the Pearl Harbour blow to keep the U.S. from taking part in the East Indies struggle, "but I can testify after 4000 miles travel from Pearl Har bour in several different units of the US. fleet that the Japanese have fooled themselves if they think Pearl Harbour is paralysed." The lines of communication are nailed down hard now, Mr. Harsch said, after having "travelled the length and breadth of that line since leaving Pearl Harbour a month ago." He had travelled part of the way with forces which attacked mandated islands and had spent many days in Robert Louis Stevenson’s islands. "Desirablest Port" "Our arrival here was a_ closely guarded secret. New Zealanders are not prone to public demonstrations and excitement, but our bluejackets on shore leave had difficulty in spending money in. the shops; citizens took groups to their’ homes; now all are agreed this is the desirablest port they have touched." "Phoenix-like" was the correspondent’s description of the U.S. navy’s "rise from the smoke of Pearl Harbour." He went on to say how he had had the choice of proceeding with the force which was to attack mandated islands or change ships and take a chance on. getting to what even Americans call "the Far East." He chose the latter course, and was transhipped by breeches buoy to a destroyer which "acted as though born for wings but denied this fullest expression." Mr. Harsch’s cable concluded: "I am confident that whenever the initial thrust can be stopped the final result is only a matter of time."

Mr. Knickerbocker’s message to the Chicago Sun said that the formation of. the Anzac force clearly showed the intention "to implement to the fullest Roosevelt’s public promise not to let Australia and New Zealand fall." An uninterrupted line of transport had been established between America’s factories and the Asiatic battle-scene, and this was going to be the deciding factor. He went astray on one minor point when he said: "local inhabitants (of Wellington) told us our destroyer was the smartest craft seen here since the original Scots settlers came." Mr. Knickerbocker gave his Chicago readers a long description of life on an aircraft carrier, with "sixty pairs of eyes" watching the sea by night, and a flock of aeroplanes watching by day. Twice, "enemy" ships were sighted, but in the first instance the "smudge of smoke on the horizon turned out to be a U.S. freighter’ and in the second "the meagre reward of our chase was a closeup of a Norwegian tanker." One evening all the aeroplanes returned except one. An hour overdue, the pilot advised by radio that he had twenty gallons left-‘"those were his last words." In defiance of the Japanese, the captain flashed searchlights to help the lost man. "But it was no good. Somewhere in the vast Pacific he was. alone." Mr. Knickerbocker ended: "Australia and New Zealand are fully aware that the Japanese may be planning such a surprise as Pearl Harbour, and intending to strike at their port cities, and that is why the arrival of United States forces here was so welcome. "Our Kind of People" "It is most impressive to find that these are our kind of people, as close to Americans as people can be without being citizens of the United States. The Philippines, Singapore, Indo-China, and even the Dutch East Indies are-re-gardless of their strategic importance and military value-foreign, oriental, bizarre, strange, not our kind of country. "This is not merely a_ militarily united front, but here one feels that the moral roots reach so deep that they may well outlast the war." Both journalists added that they were "flying now en route Java." Some day they may be in New Zealand again. But that, as Mr. Knickerbocker told The Listéner representative, "all depends on the little brown brothers."