Evening star., 1943-07-10
The Trend in the Pacific


tered on the fighting in the New
Georgia Islands and on New Guinea.
Yet those combats, separated as
they are by fully TOO miles of sea,
are themselves merely phases of a
vastly larger combat area which
runs from the Aleutians to the South
Pacific and thence to China and the
borders of India. If, therefore, we
are to understand thes-basic trend
in that inconceivably vao war thea
ter which covers almost one-half of
the entire surface of the globe, we
must try to visualize the situation as
whole.
The salient fact which emerges
from such survey is that, except in
China, we and our Western allies are
actually or potentially on the often
sive. That is sharp reversal from
a year ago, when the japanese held
the overall initiative. An excellent
Illustration of this change is COM
parison between the current cam
paign in the New Georgia group and
our surprise attack on Guadalcanal
early last August. That attack was
what soldiers call an offensive
defensive" We hit first to protect
ourselves from being hit as soon as
the japanese had turned Guadal-
canal into an offensive base. Today
we are carrying the war aggressively
against Japan's outer defenses in
both the Central Solomons and on
New Guinea, Furthermore, the jap
anese do not seem to be reacting
either as vigorously or as effectively
as they did last year. Both the air
battles over New Georgia and the
naval engagement in Kula Gulf were
American victories won more easily
and with fewer relative losses than
those last year in and around Quad
alcanal. Likewise, the advance OF
our land forces on New Georgia has
thus far been more rapid, even
though the resistance of the Japa-
nese troops has been equally des-
perate and fantical. Already the
japanese garrison at Munda, their
chief base on New Georgia, has been
isolated by convergent landing par
ties of American troops precisely as
was the japanese garrison on Attu
in the AleutianS. And the landing
parties themselves are not subjected
to the harassment of those on Quad
alcanal, owing to better air coverage
and naval protection. The entire
technique has been perfected and
it's tempo has been stepped up. 1t
looks as though a successful opera
tional formula has been discovered.
Meanwhile, the japanese base at
Kiska, their last Aleutian foothold,
is being pounded from the air and
bombarded from the sea in manner
so reminiscent of the preliminaries
to the taking of Attu that land
attack is indicated in the near flu
ture. And the japanese seem to be
resigned to Kiska's loss, since no at
tempt has been made to reinforce
the isolated garrison. Here, again,
our possession of the strategic initia-
tive is obvious.
The overall picture would not be
complete without mentioning the
Navy Departments latest report on
the work of our submarines in the
Pacific. Ten more japanese trans
ports, tankers and cargo vessels have
been sunk and four others damaged
by our undersea craft, bringing the
total of japanese vessels sunk or
damaged to nearly 800 since the out
break of war year and half ago.
This splendid record is notable in
two respects. In the first place,
merchant shipping is literally ia
pans Achilles heel. It alone makes
possible the integration of its vast
conquests with the homeland and
the maintenance of the war against
us. Secondly, Japan does not seem
to have found ways to get the better
of our submarines as we and our
Allies appear to be doing in the At
lantic against the German U-boats.
This may be because the Pacific