INDIA PREPARED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20917, 17 October 1942, Page 3

INDIA PREPARED

NEW ENEMY PUSH BIG FORCE~IN BURMA ALLIES STRENGTHENED (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (11.30 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. IG. At any time now the eastern defences of India may become a major issue in the war, says the India correspondent of The Times. Doubtless detailed Allied plans are ready for the re-occupation of Burma. Military circles believe that the Japanese have suffered too many hard blows in the Pacific, especially in the loss of aircraft-carriers, to undertake a seaborne offensive against Ceylon or south India. There is no relaxation of military vigilance, but if the Japanese do come there will need to be a change of heart not only among the Indian community. The Madras Club’s great preoccupation at • present is in insistence on the fight, which the military commander himself is challenging, to exclude Indian officers from the temporary privileges extended to British officers. It is believed that fully one-third of the Japanese forces an Burma are stricken with malaria. Nevertheless, they are in greater strength than is generally supposed and, recently, there lias been a great increase in Japanese fighter plane strength. The main enemy forces are apparently based on the Irrawaddy. The most likely Japanese plan of advance would be a series of bounds along the coastal belt from Akyab to Chittagong. Considerable Chinese reinforcements are concentrating on the Yunnan border. British reinforcements have been poured into India. Strategical areas have been occupied and fortified and the training and equipping of over 1,000,000 Indian recruits has been accelerated in a manner that few thought possible, largely as a result of the diversion of material from the Far East. Because of communication difficulties, it is believed that the Burma Road would represent the limit of the Allied advance from the north. Other Allied offensive activities would be a matter for combined operations against Rangoon and Akyab.