BOMBS OVER TOKIO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 43, 22 April 1942, Page 4

BOMBS OVER TOKIO

IT has taken America four months to avenge, if only m part the treacherous attack by Japan on Pearl Harbour and the invasion of the Phillipines. To-day the world is resounding- with the news of the bombing raid on Tokio, Yokohama., Kobe and Nagoya. For the first time in Japanese history the homeland has felt the violence of an enemy attack. The loss of face in this conncction (particulaily Lo the Sumarai class) rnust be acutely uncomfortable, but if the temper of the American people is to be taken as any o-uage the peoples of Nippon must be prepared for a growing number of such raids, both in volume and intensity, irrespective of prestige or anything else. They must be taught the painful lesson of all trouble makers that those: who play with fire must expect to be burnt. It would be folly to suppose that Japan expected to be able to wage a modern war without retaliation against her own shores, but it is equally patent to observers that she did not count the cost' of the devastating- effect of incendiary raids upon her own paste-board towns. Neither did she anticipa.te_ that long range 'planes could be utilisedi against her own mclus trial centres from bases as far away as the Chinese: mam land or the Alutian Islands. Both the possibilities are coming true and will make bitter digestion for her in the future. What will be the effect upon her far-flung battle, front when, the American air offensive is intensified. Already the armies of the Rising Sun intoxicated by the apparent ease of their conquests have penetrated far beyond the scheduled bounds. They are strung out across the Pacific seaboard from the Phillipines to New Guinea—a distance of six thousand miles. In this vast undertaking she has opened up battle fro"ts in China, Burma Java Sumatra and Papua. Her supply lines must tax to the utmost the whole of her navy and mercantile marine, while the national war effort must work the nation a,t top pressure, lhe news that the capitals of the Island Empire are now being subjected to bombing from the air must have a truly devastating effect upon the home lovmg Japanese soldier. As an ex employer oi' Japanese labour truly S;(.id in these columns two weeks ago—the Japanese ,is a brave and formidable foeman when everything is going his way, but when things commence to go wrong, he is completely without ambition or initiative. The stunning intelligence that the sacred centres of impregnable Japan are being pulverised beneath a rain of bombs that the sacred person of the Emperor himself is endangered therefrom, should help to dispel the myth of Japanese superiority among the soldiery. Reports that the raids emanated from carriers posted in mid-ocean are likely to indicate , that the bombing was an entirely naval affair. However this will have to be proved in tne light of later events, though in the meantime we have been assured that aerodromes on the China coast nave long since been prepared for those mammoth American bombers of which the world will hear more m the very near future:. In the meantime the bombing of the mam Japanese towns constitutes, definitely, the best news since the Nipponese Diet decided to enter the war arena.