The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1945. Bombs on Japan

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24600, 23 June 1945, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1945. Bombs on Japan

In the day-by-day accounts of,the battle for Okinawa, now ended with the liquidation of more than 92,000 of the enemy, no more than six air bases have been mentioned — one unnamed and the fields at Katena, Yontan, Machinate, Naha, and Yonabaru. The prize is, however, a richer one. According to Tokyo, the fall of Okinawa gives the Americans 10 airfields, and more than 1000 aircraft are already accommodated on them. .There is no reason to doubt the first part of Tokyo s report; and if there is any disposition to doubt the second, it need only be recalled that, almost a year ago, the first commander of the Pacific Army Air Forces named Okinawa as one of the few Pacific islands suitable for 1000-bomber raids on the Japanese homeland. Okinawa is the first of those islands named by General Harmon to have fallen into American hands. Tokyo’s fears are well founded. As the battle for Okinawa ended—the battle that, in Tokyo’s own words, would decide the fate of Japan—the Chief of the United States Army Air Forces had just said that three times the tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany in the whole of the European war would fall on Japan next year. An area much smaller than Germany would crumble into ruin under the impact of more than 2,000,000 tons of bombs, and Japan “might give in “ before the end of 1946 ”. Both in holding out this hope and in qualifying it General Arnold was reasonable. The Superfortress organisation under • his command has dealt calamitous blows. After a slow beginning it has expanded tremendously. In the first seven months of its existence, it made only 36 attacks; and December, the eighth month, was the first in which the attacks were numbered in double figures. But the pace has been on this year, particularly in last seven weeks. Already last month and this the bomb-load exceeds 44,000 tons, a modest total by European standards, yet one approaching the total for all the 11 months to the end of April and sufficient, according to the commander of the Mariana-based Superfortresses, to destroy Japan’s five largest cities. General Le May is, possibly, over-enthusiastic. The. war in Europe showed how quickly a bombed city could reorganise or restore its functions. But it showed, too, that that recuperative power steadily declines; and its limits, as General Arnold promises, will be prescribed by attacks such as Germany never experienced. Yet Germany did not collapse under this burden alone. It was only one factor, though it was, by German admission, the greatest. So it may be in Japan’s defeat. General Arnold believed, or at least said, that Germany could be beaten by bombs alone. The experiment tried in Europe may succeed completely in Asia. But General Arnold does not commit himself. Though Japan’s home islands are themselves a much smaller target than Germany, the home empire is* not. To blast and fire the cities of Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Hokkaido could still leave in Manchukuo, Korea, and north China a formidable core of strength. And though Japan’s cities may well become nothing more than holes in the ground, it is from holes in the ground that the enemy has done his deadliest fighting. The bombs about to fall may not be enough. Each one, however, will lighten the price the enemy seeks to exact. The time needed fo deploy Allied ground forces from Europe is by no means all loss.