Cat & Mouse

Ever since the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and ' Australian airmen had darted back & forth trading inconclusive blows at each other's outposts. It was a waiting game, with the opposing navies screened by islands and ocean wastes. Then this week the Japanese sent three two-man submarines nosing into the harbor of Sydney, third largest city (pop. 1,305,040) of the British Empire.

The first passed close by a passenger-jammed harbor ferry, periscope and conning tower in plain sight. Depth charges jarred the Sydney waterfront. A communique from General MacArthur's headquarters announced that all three of the midgets had been destroyed, that Allied losses were limited to the damaging of one insignificant harbor vessel.

It meant more than that, however, for Australia. Such tiny craft are of extremely limited range, as little as 200 miles by U.S. Navy estimates. The obvious conclusion was that the Japanese Navy had a force off Australia's southeast coast, perhaps 1,000 miles farther south than it had penetrated during the Coral Sea engagement. Vital sea routes to the U.S. and New Zealand, as well as Australia's economic heart, were again threatened.

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