JAPAN CHALLENGED IN NORTH PACIFIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 56, 3 September 1943, Page 4

JAPAN CHALLENGED IN NORTH PACIFIC

The Pacific war below the Equator no longer claims the whole of the limelight. From the Solomon Islands the flame of war jumped thousands of miles of ocean to break out anew in the Arctic atmosphere of the Aleutians; and now it has been kindled at a midway point in the North Pacific, Marcus Island. About three, thousand miles west of Hawaii and its outlying islands, and about 1200 miles south of Tokio, the capital of Japan, this small island, Marcus, now feels > the comeback of bombed Pearl Harbour, whose mission it is to avenge the disaster of Sunday, December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbour is the natural base for a great naval and aerial offensive against Japan in the middle of her North Pacific outposts, of which Marcus Island is only one. Islands that are links in the Japanese aerial and naval chain—islands that have airfields or naval bases —lie open to the attack of American' North Pacific forces. These Japanese islands rely on two things— (1) their local defences, and (2) the support of Japan's naval and air forces. Of Marcus it is stated that if America destroyed the base there, Japan would be deprived of an airfield which is a relay point between Japan and her strategic Marshall Islands^ the backbone of her Pacific arc.

It therefore would appear that if Marcus, or any other vital island in the Japanese defence lines, is attacked by American task forces to the extent of becoming endangered, Japan will find it hard to avoid coming to the rescue of the, local defence of such an island with powerful naval forces, including heavy ships. Can the Japanese navy afford to see its insular advanced bases destroyed, or even threatened with destruction, without naval intervention? Recently history shows that when Japanese-occupied islands were attacked by the Allies in regions much farther from Japan than Marcus is, Japan intervened with heavy naval and air forces—in fact, at one stage of the Solomons battles Japan sent in battle-, ships and aircraft-carriers. Now, if Japan will intervene with cruisers and destroyers, and to some extent with battleships, south of the Equator, can she refuse a full-fleet action when the Allied task forces north of the Equator attack her outposts much nearer Japan? Probably the raid on Marcus Island must be judged in the light of this strategic question. The Marcus raid may be the beginning of similar raids by task forces, including aircraftcarriers—raids intended to provoke battle fleet actions, and to bring Japan's heavy ships under the influence of the attrition tactics that have so weakened her cruiser and destroyer strength and air power in the South Pacific. It might even be possible to provoke a fleet action as decisive as, or more decisive than, Jutland. The United States navy may now feel strong enough for that supreme test.