NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 79, 30 September 1944, Page 6

NOTES ON THE WAR

THE EAST INDIES

ALLIED PENETRATION

The war in Europe, except in the south, is now, with summer at an end and* autumn set in along its Eastern and Western Fronts, with winter to follow, showing a tendency to at j least a temporary deadlock. The heaviest fighting on the Western Front is still round the spear-shaped salient the British Second Army has driven through to the Rhine. This, on a vastly larger scale; resembles the spearhead driven across the; Odon to the Orne in the middle stages* of the bridgehead battle in Normandy. Both sides are concentrating strength for a bitter struggle, "because, even after the failure at Arnhem, the Allied threat remains to Germany's most vulnerable flank. Hence the enemy's effort to hold and, if possible, reduce the salient. The battle is not yet over in Italy and is only beginning in the Danube Valley. The main Russian front on the Vistula is quiet, but Riga is closely menaced by the Red Army's Baltic drive. It is possible that to shorten the war in Europe, now that progress by land is, becoming more difficult for the Allies, there will be a renewed resort to the immense air power the Allies command in order to pound Germany into submission. The . airfields of France and Belgium and soon, if all goes well, of northern Italy, will enable the Allies to attack any part of Germany with full fighter cover, and the Russians are now well within range of the "Second Ruhr" in Silesia, if they deem it worth while to resort to strategic bombing.' Should the land fronts become stable in the winter—as they well might, except in the south —it is almost certain that the Allies will turn to the air and try at last for "victory through air power." The Russians haye always been sceptical of finality this way, but it would seem to be worth a trial, when other means have failed to hasten the end. Ways to Beat Japan. Meanwhile, Admiral Mountbatten is back in London to consult with Mr. Churchill and the service chiefs on the best way to tackle the problem of defeating Japan. This will probably include a strengthening of the Burma front for an effort to clear the country in the dry season soon due. But with the main part of the British Fleet in the East, naval, air, and amphibious operations towards Rangoon, the Malay Peninsula, and the Dutch East Indies facing west to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean are highly probable. These would greatly assist the American pressure from the east towards the Philippines The Americans are now in the Palau Islands, due east of the island of Mindanao in the Philippines; and also in Morotai, of the Moluccas, east of south from Mindanao. Carrier aircraft of strong -task forces have been attacking all the enemy-held islands within range, including Halmahera, the Celebes, Mindanao, and even Manila, in Luzon, the capital of the Philippines. If this threat from the east could be reinforced by similar British operations from the west, the grip of Japan would be greatly weakened. Pal.au and Mindanao. The Palau group, most westerly of the Carolines, consist of some 26 principal islands, only three hours by air from the Philippines, whose eastern approaches they guard. They have at least one good harbour, where the Japanese fleet took refuge at the end of March this year under air threat from American carrier forces. Apart from their strategic importance, the Palaus contain large* bauxite deposits (for the manufacture of aluminium) estimated at 10,000,000 tons. The Japanese aye still holding out at one point, but the conquest of the Palaus by the Americans is assured. The objective of all these recent operations is the recovery of the Philippines, which, . apart from their economic value, lie athwart Japanese sea communications with Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. Mindanao is the most southerly island of the. Philippine archipelago, a large island of 37,000 square miles, with good harbours and port facilities at Davao and Zamboanga. Mindanao grows most of the famous Manila hemp, for ropemaking. There is a Japanese colony at Davao, established before the outbreak of the Pacific War. The Americans were at that time settling Mindanao from the mose closely populated islands of Luzon and Cebu. Celebes and Kapok; Due south of the Philippines lies the curiously shaped island of Celebes, famous for its kapok, gathered from the kapok trees which line the long foreshore. The gateway to this thinlypopulated and largely unexplored island, with its mountains and jungles, is the port of Macassar, celebrated for its hair-oil, so popular in Victorian times that to protect cushions from the stain of reclining heads the "antimacassar" was devised as a covering. Another port is Manado in the north, about 375 miles from Davao in the Philippines. Macassar has a good airfield established by X.L.M. (Dutch Air Company) in 1937 for the air service between Amsterdam and the Dutch East Indies. The Celebes- are one of the oldest of the Dutch East Indian colonies, dating back to 1667.