CLOSING IN ON JAPAN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 260, 31 July 1944, Page 4

CLOSING IN ON JAPAN

In his statement on the naval situation in the Pacific, the United States Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Forrestal, has revealed the interesting developments possible with the complete subjugation of the islands of Guam, Tinian, and Saipan. The eight airfields and five harbours of these islands will place the advanced American air and sea bases at a 'radium of 1500 miles from the Philippines and Japan itself, “the practical radius for fleet operations,” he explained. This should mean more numerous and more effective blows at Japanese sea power than has been possible hitherto. American submarine activities against enemy navy and merchant shipping should become more intensive, naval operations should have more effective air cover, and bombing attacks by heavy aircraft should become more frequent. It has been pointed out that if Japan loses the battle of shipping she will lose the whole basis of her war effort. In this battle American submarines have played a part the full extent of which, said Admiral King, of the United States Navy, in a recent statement, will not be revealed until the end of the war. Certain facts, however, are known. Japan's merchant shipping before the war was estimated at 7,500,000 tons, with a shipbuilding capacity of about 500,000 tons annually. In the first 18 months of the war in the Pacific, up to June 15. 1943, American submarines sank or damaged 192 non-combatant ships estimated at 650,000 tons. • In the following six months, up to December 15 last, they raised the total sunk or damaged to 461 ships, of an estimated total of 1,500,000 tons. In the next four .months, up to May, this figure was increased to 617 ships, representing an estimated total to that date of well over two million tons, not including 66 torpedoed warships. On the above figures United States News estimates that more than one-third of Japan’s merchant fleet has been destroyed. ‘'American submarines,” says the author of this analysis, are winning bi illiantly against Japan the same battle that Germany s U-boats failed to .win in the Atlantic. America has lost 20 submarines in Pacific operations, or one for each 34 enemy ships torpedoed, while Germany is now losing more than one U-boat for each Allied ship lost. The effects are beginning to be revealed in shortages of supplies for the Japanese island garrisons in the Pacific, the increasing difficulty of transporting enemy reinforcements overseas, and the gradual paralysing of Japanese naval and air support. This is real progress foi the Allies in the Pacific, which should be accelerated when ample supplies for the newly-captured airfields and harbours have bedn built up for use as bases'for future operations against the enemy’s inner defences.