Counter-stroke in the North

Southland Times, Issue 24870, 9 October 1942, Page 4

Counter-stroke in the North

THE occupation by United States forces of the Andreanof group of islands in the Aleutians should set a limit to the Japanese advance in this region. The new positions are well forward of the main American base at Dutch Harbour, and they have been occupied without opposition. According to The New York Times, the threat that the Japanese might march island by island to the American mainland can now be dismissed, and the enemy has, in fact, been placed on the defensive—a conclusion that seems to be justified by this morning’s news of the evacuation of Attu and Agattu. The Andreanofs are only 125 miles from the Japanese-occupied base at Kiska, and they offer good facilities for aerodromes. American heavy bombers are already in action. They have been making daily raids on Kiska, which, like the other Japanese outposts in the Pacific, seems at the moment to lack effective air protection. But aerial attacks will not dislodge the enemy. They will disorganize his communications and defences, and perhaps make it impossible for him to resume the offensive. If the Americans are concerned only with holding the attack, their objective may not go beyond this. They may be satisfied merely to interpose a strong force between the Japanese bases and the mainland, and to continue hammering at the enemy from the air. It seems more probable, however, that the present phase will be followed by an amphibious attack on the Japanese positions. For the Aleutians in American hands represent as great a potential danger to Japan as, in Japanese hands, they do to America. Attu, the westernmost island in the group, is only 660 miles from Paramushiro, the great Japanese naval base at the northern end of the Kurile Islands. The northern route from Seattle to Yokohama is 4900 miles, compared with 6500 miles from the Pacific coast through Hawaii and Midway Island. Moreover, the Aleutian journey can be made in short hops, none of them longer than 900 miles, whereas the first lap to Pearl Harbour covers 2400 miles of open sea. Before the development of air transport these facts did not seem important. But the growth of air power has made it necessary to revise all former estimates of the potential value of the Aleutians for attack against Japan. They form a base from which violent blows could be struck against the enemy. Whether they will be so used will depend on the strategic plan which the United Nations have adopted for the Pacific. But it will be surprising if the reoccupation of Kiska and Attu, and the bombing of Paramushiro, at least, do not form part of that plan.