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Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 232, 28 June 1945, Page 6

Some idea of the importance of the Okinawa campaign in relation to the Pacific war as a whole can be gained from the statement by General Arnold, chief of the United States Army Air Force, made on the recent completion of his tour of the battlefronts. He has pointed to the simple fact that the possession of air bases on Okinawa, suitable for use by superfortress bombers, cuts 1000 miles off the round trip to Japanese mainland targets. Previously the heavy squadrons have operated from the Mariannes, and the journey to and fro was about 3000 miles, whereas it is now less than two-thirds of that distance. The gain in efficiency is obviously great, and this fact, together with General Arnold’s assurance that the United States has more aircraft available than can be accommodated on the bases so far provided, points to a rapid future increase in the air offensive to very formidable proportions indeed. There is, too, the prospect that heavy British bombers will shortly be co-operating. The ability of the Japanese war machine in Japan proper, and the national civil and industrial organization generally, to survive so concentrated an onslaught for any length of time seems to be more than doubtful. The long duration of the war would appear to depend largely upon the capacity of tlie enemy to improvise defensive industries and activities, if not in Japan, then in Manchuria or in occupied areas of coastal China—together with the extent to which his armies on the Asiatic mainland and the East Indies, and his forces on Pacific territories, are prepared to offer independent resistance.