NIPPONS DILEMMA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 1, 7 September 1942, Page 4

NIPPONS DILEMMA

FOR the first time in her triumphal conduct of her eight months war, Japan has had her fingers cut to the quick. Definitely the defeat of her land forces at Tulagi and, at Milne Bay, has struck a greater blow at her prestige than the combined effect of the Coral Sea and Midway Island naval defeats. Japan is essentially militaristic in her character despite her insularity, a complex which has been built up over the centuries by the fact that all her conquests have been won on land and also that the orient generally has never placed much importance on the construction of powerful sea going fleets for purely belligerent purposes. Land victories will ring through the land of cherry blossom with ten times the jubilation, than that which could be excited by a success at sea. The Nipponese mind can never succeed in connecting the same glory to the sinking of a lot of ships at sea, as that which attaches to the massacre of an army of foemen on the battlefield. Likewise in the same manner the loss of face, in a defeat on land is proportionately more drastic, and were it not for the cleverly worded propaganda which feeds public opinion in Japan and transforms every battle-into a resounding victory for the armies of the Mikado the effects of the recent defeats would be humiliating in the extreme. The check to Japanese arms in the Southern Pacific would seem to be of genuine discomfort to Tojo's war cabinet, for not merely has the Pacific command, decided to wage its campaigns in a decidedly more cautious manner, but the whole scheme of war strategy would seem to be in the process of overhaul. Swift retirements in China have given the heroic Marshal the greatest series of successes of his seven years gallant struggle against -his arrogant foeman. From the Domei News Agency comes also further rumblings of dissatisfaction within the Diet itself and Togo's resignation enforced or otherwise leaves the world guessing as to just what the new plot now being hatched,, will be. From authoritative reports it would seem that a full scale offensive in Siberia, against the Soviet was impending. If this was so the unexpected (and unheard of admission from Tokio) retreats in China would seem to be given a sound explanation. On the other hand the fact that Japan has conducted all her campaigns with such utter disregard, for the lives of her soldiers,, and further that the fighting men themselves have been taught from childhood, the glory of dying for the Emperor, may be at long last the vital explanation for the uncanny halt on all fronts. The wastage, of men in China alone, must be enormous and likewise the Japanese soldiers suicidal habit of fighting to the last even when the odds are hopelessly against them must also, in the long run sap the nation of its best and bravest. Whatever the. explanation is, the fact that treacherous ruthless, and arrogant Japan has arrived, at the cross roads of indecision,, remains apparent for the whole world to see.