JAPAN’S ACHILLES HEEL

Evening Star, Issue 24294, 8 September 1942, Page 2

JAPAN’S ACHILLES HEEL

WIDE PACIFIC HOLDINGS WEAK LINKS IN LONG CHAIN (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY, August 27. How and where to hit at Japan? This has been the great problem of the United Nations in the Pacific. The Allied holding offensive in the Solomons and the guerrilla thrust against Makin (Gilbert Islands) provide an answer. For Japan has linked around her conquests, stretching from Malaya to Wake Island, an 8,000-miles-long defensive island chain. It is a chain which, of necessity, must have many weak links. Broken links are a nuisance to repair. Sorties to break them, conjunctively with major occupying operations within the protected zone, appear the most satisfactory method of whittling away Japan’s strength and exposing her weaknesses.

Japan’s military strength is estimated at about 110 divisions—2,ooo,ooo men. Forces in Manchukuo have recently heen_ increased to 35 divisions, a move which supports the ominously persistent rumours that Japan will shortly attack Soviet Siberia. In China, Japan has reduced her strength to 30 divisions. About 20 divisions, including depot training groups, are believed to ho based in home territory. Approximately 15 other divisions are scattered through the Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Malaya, and Burma. Thus, with a full 100 divisions so occupied, it is apparent that the holding forces at many points on Japan’s 8,000-miles defensive perimeter must be light indeed. CHOOSING OUR TARGETS. Japan was handsomely situated for Pacific conquest. , But the United Nations, despite their serious territorial losses, to-day enjoy some compensating advantages which once belonged to Japan. Geography is now working on our side. We can choose our target as well as our moment for attack, while Japan must disperse her forces. Her navy must cover 4,000 miles of sea lanes. It must sendee and protect expeditions from the Aleutians to south of the Equator. If Japan’s own security is not to be menaced she must hold command of both sea and air within a radius of 3,000 miles of her home bases. Strong though she may be, Japan is not strong enough to do that. The enemy is attempting to shorten certain of these difficulties. For instance, her fighter planes for the Southwest Pacific theatre may now he flown from home industrial centres, with island bases as stepping stones. And, with her merchant shipping resources under heavy strain, Japan is doing everything possible to stimulate shipbuilding in all occupied territories. She needs small wooden vessels for interisland trading, to supply her garrisons, and to enable her to utilise her new-won rich resources of raw materials. (It is, too, with this primary purpose of conserving shipping that Japan has recently been making an all-out drive for control of China’s main railway system.) \ Security to exploit the resources of her Malayan and East Indian empire is Japan’s greatest need. It must be Allied policy never to allow her to develop that security. From Burma to Wake Island, from the Philippines to the Northern Solomons, Japan must be harassed by a prolonged series of raids, of which the Makin incident was but a foretaste. The enemy, though having had time .to dig in, must he kept in a continual state of siege. There is, in fact,, no doubt that she will he besieged, as an American commentator points out, “ not in a single concentrated, prepared! position, but stretched out along thousands of miles. Her enemies can choose the place _ of attack and concentrate at that point. Japan will have to scurry from all sides to meet the attack, weakening herself everywhere to defend herself at the point of attack—as we have had to do while Japan has played the role of aggressor.”

DISRUPTIVE ATTACKS. That such sharp thrusts must distract Japan from her campaign in China and her plans against Bussia is unquestioned. As the ‘ Sydney Morning Herald ’ points out, “ loss of the Southern Solomons must surely have taught Japan that she must hold her Pacific islands in considerable strength if she is to hold them permanently—and the destruction wrought at Makin Island, where the garrison was taken by surprise, has underlined the lesson.” But nothing less than full withdrawal from other theatres could give Japan the strength necessary for complete Pacific security. And, of course, such withdrawals "are clearly impossible. They would spell defeat for Japan. While she may have won vast potentials of war, many observers here feel that it is true to say that Japan is as strong now as she can be or will ever be again. If her_ forces are allowed! to concentrate she is capable of mighty blows. But, harried on all sides, her strength must incline to dissipate itself in a series of ineffectual defences against disruptive attacks. Success in these guerrilla thrusts will pave the way for the major Allied “ island-hop-ping ” offensive, launched with occupation of the Southern Solomons. Magnitude of the Allied task admits of no understatement, Japan is strong. But she has her Achilles Heel—her wide Pacific holdings. In 1941 her weakness Tver© exaggerated; to-day inclination is to exaggerate her strength. Difficulty of concentrating her resources to meet Allied! raids makes her vulnerable. Japan has reached out. a long way, but many experts believe that she has o-rown “'too big for her boots and will stumble (before she has gone much fur--41 Swift attacks on the Makin pattern are sticks thrust between the legs of the plodding Japanese to make him stumble. Kept off-balance by many such aggravating tactics, ho becomes softened ” but not yet for the knock-out blow,’ but for further dispossessing actions of the Solomons type which are heavy points-scorers in this Pacific prize ring.