JAPANESE LOSSES AT SEA

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 35, 5 November 1942, Page 6

JAPANESE LOSSES AT SEA

Straining Of Resources MUST WEAKEN HOLD ON CONQUESTS

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 4. Shipping is Japan’s Achilles heel. The news of sinkings of Japanese warships and merchantmen encourages observers in the belief that the attritional tactics now being so successfully exploited inevitably must be seriously hampering not only the enemy’s striking power, but also his ability to stabilize his widespread conquests. “Though ' the steady toll of these losses cannot be expected to produce rapid results of a cataclysmic nature, it is none the less true that the process is inexorable and cumulative in its results,” writes the military correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.” According to an authoritative estimate, Japan has lost about 250 transports, supply vessels and merchantmen from her pre-war resources of about 2400 steamships (aggregating 5,700,000 tons). While in the early stages of the war Japan was able to offset her losses by the seizure of substantial numbers of Allied ships, observers say that this is a non-recurring relief and that Japan must now draw on new construction. Japanese building capacity has been estimated at about 500,000 tons annually. The loss to the Japanese Navy is difficult of calculation, but more than 100 warships of all types have been claimed sunk or believed sunk. According to a statement made in Washington on Wednesday by the Secretary of the Navy, Calonel Knox, “our navy is ultra-conservative when reporting enemy damage.” However, lie added a warning that Japan could still concentrate a fleet of formidable proportions for the bitter fighting ahead. Submarines have now sunk 86 of the enemy ocean-going vessels .. and probably sunk 57 others, says the Washington correspondent of the “New York Times.”

The belief that the United States has developed the “best submarines afloat” has been expressed by Colonel Knox, who says that to make their attacks on enemy transports and shipping these submarines had to travel twice as far as the average German U-boat operating against American shipping in the Atlantic. To strengthen her merchant shipping position,' which is admitted by the Japanese Transport Minister as “our weak spot,” Japan, at home and in conquered territories, has pushed ahead with the construction of a great number of wooden ships of about 5(10 tons, but these, while they may alleviate her troubles, cannot solve her greatest mounting problem. Informed observers believe that while Japan can still muster enormous shipping strength, her resources of sea supply and protection are being steadily strained, so that her hald along the 8000 miles periphery of her conquests is being corresponingly weakened to the point of eventual vulnerability.