TRUK BASE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1943, Page 4

TRUK BASE

JAPAN’S PEARL HARBOUR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC. WELL-PROTECTED ANCHORAGES' AND DEPOTS. - . (By Ray P. Davis, in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) " The name Truk has appeared several times in recent news, but until the headlines announce that Truk has been smashed and occupied by the United Nations, the cause of freedom will not be safe in the South-West Pacific. The Truk group, comprising 11 major islands and about 100 small coral atolls, is Japan’s Pearl harbour of the South Pacific. Japan brought pressure to bear upon the British Foreign Secretary during World War I to procure the Marshalls, Marianas, and Caroline Islands. Japan obtained a Class C mandate over the groups, which they call Nanyo. This mandate positively forbade fortifications, but Japan fortified the islands anyXvay. Truk is in the Carolines. It is 2,200 miles from Tokio and 3,500 miles from Pearl Harbour. Some of the names you will hear as America fights northward in the Pacific and begins to bomb the Truk group on a large scale are Tol Island, Udot, Dublon, Uman, Fefan, Moen, Tsis Anchorage, and Eten Island. These are the larger islands in a large atoll surrounded by a coral reef, the whole of which is Truk. The major fortress and best-equip-ped base in the Truk group in on Dublon Island. Here is a complete naval base, with repair shops, docks, loading equipment, guns, and all paraphernalia needed in a war time harbour. Guarding this base, which is sheltered in the rear by hills, is the small island of Eten. Eten is a smooth atoll that has been built into an ideal airplane base. It is called Eten Anchorage. It is ideally situated to protect the vital harbour on Dublon. On Eten are modern runways, airplane hangars, anti-aircraft cannon and other guns, repair shops, barracks, and complete equipment for airplanes, seaplanes, and pilots. Eten is- to Dublon almost what Corregidor was to Luzon. It appears certain that Dublon is the major base from which warships, troop transports, and supply vessels, repeatedly have ventured southward, their eventual regret. Ringed by protecting reefs, Truk has some of the finest harbours in the Pacific, and one of the most unapproachable naval and air bases in the world. The Marshall Islands, 1,200 miles toward Hawaii, protect Truk on one side, while the remainder of the Caroline Islands surround Truk itself. Many smaller islands with wireless equipment, such as Makin, insure the Japanese of ample warning in case an enemy approaches. Thirteen hundred miles almost Straight north of Guadalcanal, the Truk group soon will be the object of increasingly heavy air assaults. But naval and land assaults may be another matter. It is likely that the United States Navy will move against New Britain and New Ireland, against the Gilbert Islands (Makin, etc.), and thus bottle the Japanese in their coral fortress.