JAPAN’S AIR FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1943, Page 4

JAPAN’S AIR FORCE

CHINESE GENERAL URGES DECIMATION POSSIBLE WITHIN SHORT PERIOD. LOW REPLACEMENT RATE. CHUNGKING, China. “Whatever the details of Allied strategy in the Pacific may be, the main immediate aim must be to whittle down Japan’s air strength. The Japanese air force must be attacked wherever it can be encounteied. It is possible to decimate it within a relatively short time, if only the Allies are determined enough to do so. As soon as this aim is achieved, the Japanese land forces and even the Japanese Naw will be comparatively easy game for the Allies.” ; This is the opinion of a prominent Chinese general who gave me the interview, in which he put the; main) emphasis on the crucial importance of the air force in Japan's present defensive warfare, writes Guenther Stein, in warfere. writes Guenther Stein, in the “Christain Science Monitor.” “The Japanese Air Force is already about 1200 aeroplanes smaller than it was at the time of the outbreak of the Pacific war,” he said. “Its total losses until the end of December, 1942, can reliably be put at 3600 aeroplanes of various kinds, of wich 700 were destroyed in the China-Burma-Indo-China theatre. On the other hand, Japanese production proves lower than had at first been assumed. We have been getting reports for some time that it amounted to only 250 .aeroplanes a month, of which 50 were training and transport aeroplanes, so that the monthly net output of combat aeroplanes would be no more than 200. At first we refused to believe these reports, but we received confirmation of their correctness from different sources, most recently through a Japanese Air Force officer who was shot down over Kweilin last month. It may, therefore, be assumed that Japan was unable last year to replace more than twothirds of its losses.”

NUMBER OF DIVISIONS CUT. “Another indication that the total strength of the Japanese Air Force has deteriorated is the fact that the oiiginal five divisions of the Army Air Force have recently been reorganised into four divisions, while their strength of 500 combat aeroplanes each remained unchanged. According to Japanese data, every squadron of 27 aeroplanes in the Army and Navy Air Forces has a first reserve of nine aeroplanes and a second reserve of another nine aeroplanes. Some of our Allied friends do not believe in the existence of that second reserve, but we do, and therefore put the present strength of the Japanese Army Air Force at about 2000 first-line and 1300 first and second-re-serve aeroplanes, or altogether about 3300 machines. At the outbreak of the war, it consisted of 2500 first-line and 1700 reserve aeroplanes, or altogether 4200. Its net loss, therefore, has been about 900 aeroplanes. “The Japanese Naval Air Force at the beginning of the Pacific war had 2800 first-line and about 1900 reserve aeroplanes, a total of about 4700 aeroplanes,” the Chinese general added. “In spite of replacements from current production, only somewhat more than 2600 first-line and slightly more than 1700 reserve aeroplanes, a total of roughly 4400 aeroplanes, are left. It is true that the Naval Air Force lost much more heavily than the Army Air Force, and that virtually its entire original first-line strength was wiped out; but it seems to have obtained a larger share from current production. “In other words, Japan’s total-air strength of about 8900 aeroplanes has now been reduced to no more than 7700 aeroplanes, or by 13.5 per cent., apart from the fact that the equivalent of Japan's entire production during the year 1942 was also destroyed. Taking this figure also into account, it is clear that exactly every third of all Japanese aeroplanes produced either before or during the war has been lost during the last year. Considering the enormous growth of the Allied air strength, it should not be difficult to do infinitely better this year and virtually to deprive Japan of most of the vital air protection for its army and navy.” PRESENT DISPOSITION. Asked about the present disposition of the Japanese Army Air Force, the Chinese general gave me the following ■estimates:

“In China, the Japanese had altogether about 280 bombers and fighters last December. Part of the bombers have since been withdrawn, but the total was actually increased to 470 recently on account of a considerable reinforcement of the fighter strength in preparation for the expected growth of the Allied Air Force in China. This increase of their air strength in China is probably the reason why the Japanese have been more active during the last few weeks, making large-scale reconnaissance flights and raiding defenceless Chinese towns, although to practically no military purpose.” (It seems possible that this activity is partly explainable by advanced realistic training for new pilots.) “In Manchuria the Japanese Army Air Force used to maintain two full divisions with 1000, first-line and over 600 reserve aeroplanes. At present, however, only about one half of that former total seems to be left. Part of the aeroplanes originally kept in Manchuria have been sent to New Guinea to supplement the badly decimated naval air force, some were sent to North China, and a good number recently have been transferred to Burma on account of the increasing activity of the British and American Air Forces in that country. TWO MAIN BASES. “In the entire Burma-Indo-China-Thailand-Malaya theatre, where they probably will be kept more and more busy in the future, the Japanese have only one division of the Army Air Force, with a possible total of about 800 first-line and reserve aeroplanes. Their two main bases in this vast theatre are at Sungha in Thailand near the Malayan border, and in Nanwang in the Cambodian part of French IndoChina on the Mekong river.

“The remainder of somewhat more than one of the total of four army air divisions, somewhat over 1000 aeroplanes, are in Korea against the Soviet Union; in Japan proper for home defence; in Formosa, where the actual air strength is at present extremely small, and in New Guinea and other parts of the south-western Pacific where the great losses of the naval air force called for increasing support by the army air force. “If only our Allies destroy 3000 Jap-

anese aeroplanes during the first half of this year,” the general said, “we probably would not need the Buena road any more to bring us materials for the long-term preparation of a heavy counter-attack against Japan for in that case the air defences of the Japanese would be so thinly spread over vast theatres that their remaining good aeroplanes and good pilots would be so badly needed where our Allies are pushing on their own land and naval offensives quite apart from what is needed for the protection of the last line of defence (that is, of Japan proper and Formosa) that we would not encounter any more Japanese aeroplanes in China and therefore could support our Allied offensives elsewhere with what modern land equipment we have in reserve and with our masses of infantry.”