ROADS TO TOKIO

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 11, 8 October 1943, Page 5

ROADS TO TOKIO

Air Power And Burma

(Received October 7, 7.5 p.m.)

NEXV YORK, October 7.

Air power is the Allies’ most powerful weapon for crushing Japan. This view is contained in a paper read by the planning officer of the United States Army Air Forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Wildman. Army spokesmen say that the paper can be regarded as a statement of the official opinions of the United States War Department, the air staff and the army air forces. In addition to the statement on Allied air power, Colonel Wildman made two significant points which may indicate the future of United Nations’ action in the Pacific. lie emphasized the formidable but little realized barriers protecting Japan proper. He implied that the quickest and most feasible road to Tokio lay through Burma and China. The views he expressed are widely believed to represent the dominant thoughts of the War Department- on Pacific battle plans. Colonel Wildman’s report emphasized that the Allies were still 1,000 to 3,000 miles from bases from which sustained bombing operations could be carried out against the enemy’s home strongholds, lie pointed out. the need for obtaining bombing bases close enough to the. Japanese .mainland to permit of continuous air attack. Summarizing the advantages of the various “roads to Tokio,” he strongly intimated that the War Department favoured an approach via Burma and China. , Of the Australia-New Guinea approach, Colonel Wildman said: “It is fraught with the time-consuming task of reducing island fortresses stretching one after the other over ”500 miles before an effective air base zone can be reached. Progress from either the South or central Pacific will be painfully slow as the Japanese must literally be dug or blasted out of each island.” . He also discussed Siberia as a potential base against Japan, but pointed out that unfavourable weather conditions would largely obstruct air operations from this zone.