Victory for a Day

Last week a Navy Department bulletin caused a reporter to write from Washington: "United States fighter planes have scored a smashing victory over the Japanese at Guadalcanal, shooting down 37 of an attacking force of 98 planes, with a loss of seven American craft, the Navy announced today in a communique that told of the greatest aerial battle in the Solomons since last winter."

The next day the Navy issued another communique. This one showed that, far from being a smashing victory, the battle was: 1) an exchange of equipment which, if anything, favored the Japanese; 2) an alarming indication of the use to which the Japanese could put their new concentrations of air power in the South Pacific.

The 98 Japanese planes had attacked a convoy approaching or standing off Guadalcanal. They had sunk a destroyer, a New Zealand corvette, a tanker, damaged a "fuel-oil boat." The U.S. victory had lasted one day. The Navy Department and the news-hungry press could have afforded to wait for the whole story in one accurate installment.

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