TO CRUSH JAPAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 91, 17 April 1943, Page 7

TO CRUSH JAPAN

GREAT AIR STRENGTH

NEED IN THE PACIFIC

(0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, Mar. 28

Prominent Americans are constantly urging the United States Government to send additional air power to wage war against the Japanese in the Pacific, and the latest advocate is Captain Gill Robb Wilson, 49-year-old president of the National Aeronautic Association, one of the nation's foremost air experts. He flew in the last war as a pilot with the French and Americans.

Captain Wilson, in an interview in Trenton, New Jersey, made it clear he is eager to see a greater proportion of American air power sent to the Pacific. "We are not. going to 'take' Japan easily," he said. "It will require greater air power to crush Japan, and deliver the vast empire she has seized in the Pacific, than it will take to defeat Hitler and Mussolini. Even the destruction of the entire Japanese fleet would not leave Japan at the mercy of our forces," said Captain Wilson. "We would still have to reckon with their land-based air power. Japan's hold on the vast empire she lias seized since Pearl Harbour can only be destroyed by air power." Vast Occupied Area Captain Wilson added: "Many persons seem to feel that the war in the Pacific is relatively unimportant as compared with the war in Europe. Because the vast empire now under the domination of Japan is an amphibious empire, its real significance does not impact on the popular imagination. Yet the very fact that it is an amphibious empire gives it particular significance in the air age, when the flying-boat is going to come into its own. If Japan should cement her" gains in the Pacific, she would become the master of a greater percentage of the population of the earth than any Government since the Romans. If, for example, the Japs manage to hold Burma, China is as practically isolated from western civilisation as she conceivably could be. The hold of the Jap on its vast conquered Pacific empire can only be destroyed by air power. Yet the utilisation of air power is a far greater problem and requires more skill and conception than the utilisation of air power in the European theatre of war. When American men of war approach Japan proper, as so many people seem to feel we can do, let us remember that we have here an example of sea power approaching land-based air power. "The destruction of the entire Japanese fleet would still not leave Japan at the mercy of our forces. Just as the Luftwaffe found it impossible to destroy an inferior landbased air force concentrated over the British Isles, so we will find it difficult to make an easy conquest of Japan, even though we wipe out her sea power." Captain Wilson was quick to say, however, that the structure of Japanese civilisation is not as invulnerable as that of England, which showed her mettle when her back was to the wall.

"Japan Will Burn More Easily"

"Japan will burn more easily," Captain Wilson said, "but it still will require the application of tremendous air power to crush her. For this reason I am eager to see a greater proportion of American air power sent to the Pacific."

Asked to comment on the present situation in the Pacific, Captain Wilson said that the danger in that area "is never over." "The Japs are firmly entrenched in the Aleutian Islands," he said. "If they ever get a force north of the Pribilof Islands and in the vicinity of St. Lawrence Island, in the Bering Sea, they would be close to Nome, and might very considerably establish themselves in northern Alaska. Danger is where you find it, and I believe the best defence is constant anticipation of it."

Neither Germany nor Japan, according to Captain Wilson, is as dangerous a foe as is "our own laxity."