GET HITLER FIRST

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 251, 24 October 1942, Page 5

GET HITLER FIRST

T1ME TO CONSOLIDATE CALL FOR ALLIED OFFENSIVE

P.A. Special.

SYDNEY, Oct. 23.

An immediate major countercffensive on the Asiatic Continent against the Japanese is being urged from many quarters. The Far Eastern correspondents of Australian newspapers stress as the first necessity a campaign to re open the Burma supply route to China. The danger is foreseen that if Japan's Asiatic successes are further extended, her defensive position will become so strengthened that her defeat will be delayed for some years. and she may even become impregnable because of her marspower resources and the impossitoility of cutting her off from raw materials. It is contended that advantage should be taken of Japan's present preoccupation with the South-west Pacific, where she has been forced to divert considerable strength by the American success in the Solomons. Some well- informed observers are quoted as believing that following rehabilitation of the Pacific position, Japan's next moves will be, first, an invasion of Bengal to begin the conquest of India by States, and second, the capture of Yunnan, bordering on Upper , Burma, to prevent the Allies from restoring the supply line to South China. Siberia will not be invaded until Germany achieves the maximum penetration of Russia in Europe, and then only if Hitler de» stroys the Red Army's offensive power. Mr Edgar Snow, now Far Eastern correspondent of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, who is the author of "Red Star over China,' and a leading authority in Far Eastern affairs, says that Japan is reported to be planning to join her home islands to the Asiatic continent by an under-sea tunnel to Korea. She is also working feverishly to complete railways linking Bangkok (the Siamese capital), Rangoon (the occupied Burmese capital), Lashio (the Burmese terminus of the former supply route to China), Saigon (in South Indo-China), and Singapore, in order to ensure the free flow of vital rubber, oil, tungsten and chromium supplies. "The Allies can defeat Japan today only by a major campaign cutting her off from these essential resources she is trying to secure," says Mr Snow. "The alternative — a successful invasion of Japan proper — can hardly be conceived without a continental base." The primary move in the land drive on Japanese-held territory from India advocated by Mr Snow must be one of political s'trategy — the proclamation of freedom for all advanced colonial people. The Allies could thus count on the full mobilisation of India's and Burma's 400 millions, he believes.

NEED TO REINFORCE INDIA. "Then, with only a small fraction of the American forces now being poured into Europe, we could safeguard the remaining bases in East Asia and launch an early counteroffensive to re-open Burma and re» store China's active front," says Mr Snow, urging America to reinforce India at much greater strength. "In a few months that opportunity will no longer exist. What can be done now with five divisions and 100 planes wil afterwards require ten times that force. "A war which can be fought now largely with Indian supplies on the spot may afterwards have to draw entirely on American bases 15,000 to 18,000 miles distant." Mr Snow observes that Japan to-day is the world's second largest empire, populated by 500 million people. If India were conquered, Tokio would rule more than half the men and women on the earth. "Naturally Japan loves our 'Get Hitler first' strategy," he says. "Tokio hopes that we will continue to neglect our Asiatic bases until we shall have none left when the time comes to support our eventual Pacific counter-offensive."