MENACE OF JAPAN

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23748, 21 September 1942, Page 5

MENACE OF JAPAN

“FAR TOUGHER THAN GERMANY” (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Sept 19. Carrying on what has been called a one-man campaign to arouse the nation to the difficulties of the task confronting it in the Pacific, Mr Joseph C. Grew (former United States Ambassador to Japan), speaking at Syracuse, described Japan as: ‘‘Our most formidable enemy, far tougher than Germany.” He said Germany cracked in 1918 and will crack again, but the Japanese will fight on until the bitter end. He said he was shocked by the armchair strategists who recommend that the United Nations defeat Hitler first and then mop up the Japanese. "I know the Germans well. They are truculent and bullying when on the crest of the wave, but demoralised in defeat.” he said. “I know Japan. I lived there for 10 years. The Japanese won’t crack morally, psychologically. or economically, even when eventual defeat stares them in the face. They will pull their belts in another notch, reduce rations from a bowl to half a bowl of rice. Only by utter physical destruction and the utter exhaustion of men and materials can they be defeated. That is the difference between the Germans and the Japanese. That is what we are up against in fighting Japan," Mr Grew said. "Those who have never lived in Japan have no conception of the overwhelming confidence of the Japanese Army and Navy, and their overwhelming ambition and determination to conquer and subjugate portions of the Occident, just as they have already temporarily possessed themselves of large sections of the Orient. The Japanese are already in the Aleutians. They intend first to bomb important American centres and then eventually invade America. The Japanese may seem fanatics, but in building an army they have been extremely practical and level-headed. “The Japanese Army has the great advantage of five years’ hard fighting in China. They paid dearly for it. estimates of their losses running as high as 1,000,000 men, but they obtained a nroving ground where they could build a tough veteran army, trained in the greatest of all military schools—war itself.” Mr Grew, as a layman, suggested a two-point programme for victoryfirst, the gradual but progressive dislodgement of the Japanese from the areas they have occupied, and, second,

the gradual and progressive destruction of the Japanese Navy, merchant marine, and air force to isolate the Japanese mainland. “This won’t be the end. It will be the beginning of the end. Let us leave the coup de grace to the tacticians. They, won't fail."