CANNOT WIN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 121, 25 May 1942, Page 4

CANNOT WIN

JAPANESE AT PEAK

BANISHED YANKEE'S STORY

(0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, April 24.

The fall of Batan was a grievous blow to the United States, but to James Young, who spent 13 years in Japan as a newspaper correspondent, it was something else. He says the fact that Batan did net fall in four weeks was a blow to Japan.

Young knew General Homma very intimately, and it was because of ah interview with him that Young was piit in prison in Japan. Homma then was in command of the Japanese Army in South China, and told Young the Chinese could not be conquered. He was an able general, Young now says, and expected to conquer not only Batan but also Corregidor in four weeks, and committed suicide because he failed.

Young says Japan cannot win because its effort now is at its peak. It is fighting everywhere with everything it has. Its militarists are so cocksure that they never admit a mistake. Its industrial system is unstable, its financing peculiar, its fear of Russia is acute, its isolation frcm the Axis is a serious problem, and its political intrigues at home are far more violent than the outside world guesses. The infant mortality Is high, the undernourished and frightened population is restive.

The Japanese were buoyed by the fall of Singapore, which came much more easily than they had expected, but their losses of men and material in Batan have staggered them. They are working desperately hard to produce planes and material. Every plant is working 24 hours a day seven days a week. But they know that if they cannot win quickly they are doomed, says Young, who is now in Hollywood, engaged in literary work.

An illuminating sidelight on how the Japanese fared in one of their clashes with the United Nations was afforded when Vice-Admiral William Alexander Glassford, commanding United States naval forces in the south-west Pacific, arrived in San Francisco. Allied naval forces went into the Battle of Java outnumbered more than two to one, but "we inflicted more damage than we received," he said.

The Vice-Admiral, who had arrived frcm the war area, said overwhelming air and surface superiority of enemy forces was responsible for the loss of the Battle of Java. "We lost the Battle of Java, but I expect to go back to Java, in company with General Douglas MacArthur, and then back to Manila," Admiral Glassford said.

"The Japanese appeared off Java with 45 transports, with the obvious intention of making a landing," he continued. "Those transports were escorted by two cruisers and eight destroyers, and were protected by a covering force of an additional eight cruisers, two of them heavy, and eight destroyers. The Allied force was just one-half the size of the covering force. The losses we suffered were not incidental to the battle itself, but probably to air attacks the following morning on our ships still in the Java Sea and not able to get into the seas south of Java. We had 30 planes when the Battle for Java began and we wound up:in.Australia with-two."