RAID ON DARWIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 43, 20 February 1942, Page 4

RAID ON DARWIN

LARGE AIR FORCE USED

After several false alarms, Darwin has been attacked by Japanese aircraft, and in no halfhearted way. Details of th 6 attack are scanty, but as far as they go they show that the first attack was made by It bombers, escorted by fighters, and a second by 21 large bombers, of which four were brought down. -.-..,'

Where the: Japanese flew from is not stated, but the fact that the bombers had a fighter escort is evidence that an aircraft carrier was used, at least for the fighters, which have not a long flying range. . .

Darwin is the best of several good harbours in the Northern Territory, and has, for obvious reasons,, been selected as a wartime base. It was, equally . obviously, destined to stand the first -shock of any -Japanese attack on Australia. ; V ' The attack at this:stage may be regarded as a nuisance raid, designed of course to do as much.damage as possible, but riot, as the herald of an invasion. Tokio has been talking very loudly to Australia lately, threatening terrific doings on the one hand, and trying to.prove the futility of resistance and of expecting help on the other. But these protestations tend rather to disbelief in ah early heavy attack than otherwise., Japan has other big jobs on hand at present. At the same time, the air supei-iority which Japan has hitherto enjoyed, and which has been challenged only in limited areas, remains a cause of real anxiety for Australia. "■ . , Java's Millions. It seems essential for Japan to conquer Java before attempting to invade Australia. There is natural curiosity about the position of Java in the Netherlands East Indies, aroused by the fact that whereas several other Indies islands, including the largest—■ j Borneo, Celebes, and Sumatra for instance—have been' successfully invaded by the Japanese with no great trouble, Java is so far intact except for raids. . • Java is considerably smaller in area than the South Island of New Zealand, and is about one fourteenth of the area of the Dutch Indies altogether. But it is i one* of the most densely peopled countries in-the world. It carries a population of something like 50,000,000 people, out of some 70,000,000 for the whole of the Indies. These millions are overwhelmingly native; and there are only about 200,000 Europeans. It is in Java that the military strength of the Indies is concentrated, land small though it is, it is backed by | a valorous spirit and determination to resist. .An attack on Java is no job for a flying, squadron, or even for so large' an expedition as seized Balik Papan— and paid a heavy price for it—in the Macassar Strait. News has come today of the arrival of reinforcements in Java, including some Americans. End of Burma Road. Even before the Japanese reached Rangoon, the famous Burma Road has resigned its function, and the entrance to Rangoon has been mined. This is an admission that the attack cannot be prevented from succes in its first object, the strangling of the supply route to Chungking. Some arrangement has been made, as the result of Chiang Kai-shek's Visit to India, for supplies to be sent from . India to China, by a route which is' not described. There appears, to be a feasible, though far from direct, route up the Brahmaputra Valley, across a narrow range, and into the valleys of the Irrawaddy system, where connection can be made with the Burma Road to China.