THREAT TO BURMA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 42, 19 February 1942, Page 6

THREAT TO BURMA

After overrunning Malaya and securing Singapore, what will be the next immediate objective of the Japanese? In all probability, from reports of troop movements and other information, it will be Burma. The threat to eastern Burma, the region through which run the Burma Road and railway connecting its Burma terminus at Lashio with the seaport of Rangoon, is already serious. The armies of the invader have pushed some distance into Burma towards the objective of the railway and Rangoon, the commercial capital of the country, and the defenders, British and Indian troops, have had to fall back from the Salween River, a natural barrier, to a less defensible river, the Bilin. The invaders are now within fifty miles of this railway and within a hundred of Rangoon. Meanwhile other enemy forces are massing in northern Thailand and north-western Indo-China with the purpose of cutting the Burma Road, China's lifeline of communication with the outer world, at more than one point. In this respect the danger to the Allied cause is no less than it was in the case of Singapore. It is in realisation of this that Chinese forces are taking part in the defence of Burma and their "national leader, General Chiang Kai-shek, is visiting India and meeting Indian popular leaders, with the idea of enlisting the Indian i people as a whole in the common cause against the Japanese aggressors. There is good ground for hope that the Chinese leader will be successful in his mission, for it. must be clear to the Indian nationalists that there is no future whatever for Indian self-government in event of a Japanese victory. It is this that lends vital importance to the conferences in Calcutta.

It is unlikely, with time so pressing, that the Japanese will be

content with a campaign in Burma. Other forces available may be. used to consolidate the foothold gained in Sumatra, near Palembang, with a view to a combined naval and air attack on Java, preliminary to a landing on the island, which remains the citadel of Allied defence in the East. Indies and the base for future offensive operations. It is the unique advantage of their strategic position in the South China Sea that enables the Japanese to contemplate simultaneous advances in so many places. Firmly based in Indo-China, Thailand, and Malaya, with, at present, virtually complete command of the sea, they can strike in any direction with some confidence, but they must strike quickly to anticipate and forestall the growing strength of the Allies in this area. The issue with Japan is a race against time. The Japanese beat the pistol and secured a big lead, but their leaders themselves admit that their main tasks have still to come. This phase of the war is just beginning, and if the Allies, by hanging on grimly, can hold the Japanese advance within bounds, they will win in the long run.