DUE TO BOMBING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1942, Page 5

DUE TO BOMBING

DEFEAT IN CORAL SEA

JAPANESE LACK OF PROTECTION

iß.v '(telegraph—Press association—Copyright, i (Rec 11 a.m.) CHUNGKING, June 10. The Chinese Communist newspaper "Hsin Hua Jih Pao" hai. published an article on the Japanese fleet written by a Japanese naval ; prisoner of war named Naoki, in which he said the Japanese second fleet was routed by American planes in the Battle of the Conal Sea.

He attributed the Japanese defeats in the Coral Sea and at Midway to the vulnerability of Japanese warships to aerial attack. "The Japanese navy dreads aerial attacks," he said, "because the Japanese have sacrificed heavy deck armour and A.A. protection for heavier guns and greater speed."

He declared that on the battleship he w»s on the thinnest upper-deck armour resembled boiler plate in some sections. Japanese naval officers are accustomed to crowding their crews and skimping food supplies and are

contemptuous of British and American warships which they dub "tourist boats.*'

The sacrifice of comfort and efficiency have lowered the fighting qualities oi Japanese warships' crews, which are incapable of sustained alertness and prolonged fighting. , • Monotonous diet, lack of nutrition, and Jack of rest have caused lapses of dusty resulting in many serious accidents. '