Against the Periphery

Do not write off this offensive as a minor island hop. This push can reverse the status of the opposing forces in the Pacific war. We have been fighting a war of defense, irritating the Japs into attacking Guadalcanal, where we slaughtered their planes with clouds of fighters hopping off handy airfields. That was war of attrition. It was defensive, and it was not moving towards Tokyo.

This move is island-to-island warfare. It is the only way we can do this job so long as we have no more shipping than we have. But, in grand strategy, this could be the first move in closing in on the Japs' eastern periphery, toward their offensive positions.

From his vantage point at Admiral William F. Halsey's headquarters, TIME Correspondent Duncan Norton-Taylor thus appraised the Allied offensive in the Pacific last week. What he wrote applied to every phase of that offensive--in the Solomons, in New Guinea 700 miles to the west, in the islands between.

It was one offensive, but it had two parts. One part, directly under General Douglas MacArthur, was aimed at the Japanese positions in northern New Guinea (first Salamaua, then Lae) and at the island gateway between the Pacific proper and its southern satellite, the Coral Sea. The other part, though planned by General MacArthur, was under the immediate command of Admiral Halsey. His Naval, Marine and Army forces aimed at Munda, a Japanese air base and army station on New Georgia Island, some 200 miles northwest of Guadalcanal. On the approach to Munda, the Americans first took the outlying island of Rendova, and positions on New Georgia itself, and on Vangunu Island.

These were preliminaries. Salamaua, Lae and Munda also were intermediate objectives on the road to a larger objective--Rabaul, heart & center of the Japanese naval, air and land establishment on the southwestern periphery. North of Rabaul there is only open sea (775 miles of it) between the periphery and the great naval base at Truk in the Carolines. From Rabaul the Allies also could strike behind the Japs' long Indies line, across the inner shipping lanes to Japan itself.

But this offensive need not fail if it stops short of Rabaul. Nor, if the Americans and Australians do take Rabaul itself, need it follow that Truk must be reduced. The great value of the offensive is the wide range of tactical choice given to MacArthur. He and Admiral Halsey may prefer to deal with Rabaul's air fleets in the air--once the Allies were so close, the Japs would have little choice but to spend their planes and pilots. Rather than attempt a prodigious expedition against Truk, the Air Forces and the Navy may prefer to deal with the Japanese fleet at sea--once the Allies penetrated the periphery, the Japanese Navy would have little choice but to challenge the threat.

This initiative, this freedom of action was what the Japs had when they advanced into the Southwest Pacific. It is what the Pacific Allies must have and exploit, on a scale far greater than that of last week's preliminary, before they can advance to Tokyo.

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