Evening Post FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1943. AIR-POWER VERSUS MAN-POWER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 86, 8 October 1943, Page 4

Evening Post

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1943.

AIR-POWER VERSUS MAN-POWER

"Only by complete physical destruction of their men and resources can the Japanese be defeated," writes a repatriated English professor, Professor Morris, who has returned to London from Japan. He adds that until the Allies are "in a position to bring this about" (that is, the complete physical destruction of Japan's men and resources) "any talk of Japanese collapse is merely a dangerous form of wishful thinking." All wishful thinking is dangerous, and Professor Morris is doing a good work if he is dissipating complacence; but it is doubtful whether he has stated the military .problem in its entirety. Complete physical destruction of men and resources, in the case of an agricultural, and industrialised nation of over seventy million people, is not possible if the adult males of the seventy millions are dealt with one by one. But there are measures known to war that may put the armies and fleets and air fleets of the seventy millions at such a disadvantage that they cannot fight, cannot be supplied, and cannot be fed. If these measures can be taken, then the 'armies against whom they are taken retreat" in the first place, and in the last place, when they can retreat no longer, have the choice between surrender and military destruction. Why have the German armies retreated in Russia? Not because of "complete military destruction" but because they fear that such destruction will result from the measures taken against them, unless they retreat. The Germans want no more Stalingrads. Likewise, the Japanese will presently grow tired of "hedgehogs" and will retreat also, if the sea-tracks are open. The narrowing German circle in Europe sets the fashion for the wide Japanese circle in Asia and the Pacific. What the Germans will do, and what the Japanese will do, when, their circle has become the narrowest possible, remains to be seen; but air inferiority is a terrible thing for a huge population" huddled together, and in 'thai case, if surrender is ruled out, there may be some approach to physical destruction. By that time, however, the war will have been virtually won. And it is not to be assumed that the Japanese retreat will be brought about by man-to-man fights all round the Japanese circle or arc. The "corporal's war" in New Guinea—the man-to-man phase of which is well described by an Australian war correspondent—is but a part of a whole. A strong implication that "the quickest and most feasible road to Tokio lies through Burma and China"—on the lines of what has been called continental strategy, as apart from "archipelagic" warfare —is a high light of a paper recently read; by Lieut.-Colonel Wildman, planning officer of the United States Army Air Forces, who is believed to "represent the dominant thoughts of the United States War Department on Pacific battle plans." Of the Australia-New Guinea approach, Colonel Wildman said: "It is fraught with the > timeconsuming task of reducing island fortresses stretching one after the other over 2500 miles before an effective air base zone can "be reached. Progress from either the South or Central Pacific will be painfully slow, as the Japanese must literally be dug or blasted out of each island." Complete physical destruction on this man-to-man model Wildman does not propose. By continental strategy he would get behind Japanese Oceania and leave it in the air. ;.. Complete physical destruction of the adult males of seventy million Japanese, as the result of hand-to-hand fighting in many widely separated places, is neither desired nor necessary. Wildman's voice from Washington, and other voices from New Delhi, speak of a master-strategy which, with the considerable help of air-power, and the also considerable help of MacArthurHalsey operations in the South Pacific and of Nimitz operations farther north, will aim at the,heart of Japan and will cut, near her home bases, her communications with the Indies and Oceania. Is it not more important to number Japan's aeroplanes and ships than to number her fighting men? What can her fighting men accomplish without, ships, aeroplanes, oil, and supplies? Where is the fighting efficiency of Japanese land, sea, and air forces who are short of aeroplanes, whose production of aeroplanes is limited, and whose conquered oilfields are within the range of reconquest by better-equipped armies, fleets, and air fleets? That these questions are vital is sufficiently indicated by a statement made in New Delhi by the Com-mander-in-Chief of the Air Forces there, Sir Richard Pierse, who states that already the Japanese air force "is a wasting asset, and its losses are not being balanced by new construction." This statement counters any impression that Japan's accepted heavy losses of aeroplanes in the Pacific in 1942 imply a sufficient rate of aeroplane construction in Japan. Pierse notes that in other fields Japan is conserving her aircraft, and he suggests that the ominous switching of German aeroplane construction from bombers to fighters will soon be . copied by the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Allies' Pacific operations pin down Japanese forces in a wasteful attrition, and Nimitz raids Wake Island and tempts Japan's main fleet to show its strength in the northern part of the Pacific. These naval and amphibian operations work in with the continental strategy now planned at New Delhi. The war is one and indivisible. With or without a supreme command, Pierse affirms that co-operation of the highly equipped forces arrayed against Japan is complete, and that the Japanese human hive will not prevail against them. ,