94-to-6

Japanese strategy in the south Pacific is both clear and intelligent: to hold every inch of this outer rim as long as possible; to make every Allied move as expensive as possible. But Jap tactics in applying this strategy have been wasteful. Last week they put on one of their worst performances of the war, and paid for it.

Over Guadalcanal and the outlying Russell Islands suddenly appeared 120 Jap aircraft, only 16 less than the U.S. and Australians used in the Bismarck Sea. Just what the Japs hoped to accomplish with this formidable force was hard to see: no important shipping was in the area, according to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, and the Japs surely knew by then that the American positions were well defended. U.S. fighters tore into the Jap formations, shot down 77 bombers and Zero-type fighters. Ack-ack accounted for 17 more. U.S. loss: six planes (plus, probably, some others temporarily damaged). Jap bombs hit, but did not sink, one Liberty-type ship and one smaller cargo ship.

Over the weekend Jap losses mounted. Raiding Darwin, they lost 12 planes destroyed, 12 damaged. Next day they sent 36 Zeros to attack Lae, New Guinea, were met by U.S. Lightnings. Result: 14 Zeros shot down, 9 more set afire.

The Japs are bound to feel such losses, but they have many hundreds of planes tucked away on 60-odd airdromes along the arc from Java to the Solomons. After four raids on Vunakanau, Rapopo and Lakunai airfields near Rabaul within the last fortnight, American crews could still count around 200 Jap planes, and the force scattered along the south Pacific front probably totals 1.500 to 2,000--a good many more than the Allies have mustered in the same theaters.

But Allied air prospects are looking up. Australia's Prime Minister John Curtin, chronically on the defensive, announced last fortnight that the holding war was over, that the phase of attack had begun. General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters said last week that a new type of U.S. ship was in action: the air forces had received some Vultee Vengeance dive-bombers and the R.A.A.F. had used them to raid the Tenimber Islands 300 miles north of Darwin.

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