The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1942-11-11
NO EASY VICTORY
SEEN In PACIFIC
Warriors There Expect Years
OF Slow Fighting To
Unseat Japs

Warriors There Expect Years
OF Slow Fighting To
Unseat Japs
PEARL HARBOR. There
are no 90-day victory thinkers
among the American fighting men
in the jungle wildernesses of the
south Pacific islands.
Their experiences with life in
the raw and their contact with
realities there make them feel as
if they were living in a different
world. And they are thinking diff
ferently, also. They are cOnyinc-
ed that it will take years to lick
the Japanese.
Above all, this realization stirs
their emotions deply when they
hear reports from the mainland
of folks at home at times express
sing opinions that the war will
be over in so or 80 days. That
makes the fighting men really
feel that they are living in a diff
ferent world and that the folks
at home don't realize what a
tough and desperate job Ameri-
cans have been plunged into.
Inst an Outnost
1t is now three months since the
| American offensive was launched
in the south Pacific, and IL
months since the war started.
Guadalcanal, in the Solomons, is
just another outspost, a remote
one of the japanese line of con-
quest. The Japanese moved in on
Guadalcanal without opposition,
March s.
Five months later the United
States marines landed there in
the first American offensive. They
captured the airfleld the Japanese
were building and killed most of
the enemy, a few getting away
into the jungle hills.
Since then the greatest air and
naval surface engagements of the
war have been fought over posses
sion of this outpost. The end of
the Guadalcanal campaign is not
yet in sight. The major Japanese
land, sea and air effort to smash
the American lines failed in its
first phase. A second and perhaps
even stronger effort is expected.
Test of Real Power
The battle for Guadalcanal is
one of the decisive battles of the
war. The decision involved is not
the winning of the war but the
test of W h h e r American
strength at this time is efficient
to carry on the offensive against
Japan in the south Pacific.
Even with successful outcome
of this campaign, the result
achieved would be conquest of but
one stepping stone. There is no
reason to assume that the more
important move of smashing the
Japanese stronghold of Rabaul,
700 miles west by north of Quad
alcanal, would be elss tough or
accomplished in less time.
Important as the capture of Ra-
baul would be, it still would re-
suit in but another stepping
stone, another outpost in the
drive to smash the south Pacific
empire Japan carved in four
months of easy conquest.
One has but to get large
scale map of the southwest Paci-
fic and trace the stepping stones
through the Bismarck archipela-
30, INSW GulhOo, bhc huhlAoAASS
islands, west islands to visualize
the hard road before approach is
gained OF the Philippines.
Danger on Flanks
This rocky road toward victory
runs past the power houses of
Truk and Palau, which japan has
built for 20 years to meet just
such a situation, and which must
be neutralized. The fighting men
7 in the field see years of work in
these tough problems.
The logistics problem holds the
key to fighting advances. APP
proach to Guadalcana1 was d.
rect. No thanking problems of
Japanese-held positions were in
volved. Movement into Rabaul
faces thanking problems from
Truk to the north and Japanese
positions in east New Guinea to
the south.
A direct movement from west
New Guinea to the Philippines
would find the problem of Japa-
nese positions on all sides, unless
the Celebes and Borneo were re-
gained first, and even then. the
japanese would hold both flanks
and ahead = Palau to the east,
Freneh-Indo China to the west
and the main communications