JAPANESE SEA STRENGTH

Evening Star, Issue 21077, 14 April 1932, Page 3

JAPANESE SEA STRENGTH

4. GREAT NAVY HELD READY With Japanese destroyers shelling the Chinese ports at Woosung, and Japanese Marines leading the advance against the Chinese defences near Shanghai, the Navy of Dai Nippon is once more fulfilling its rolo as the decisive factor of armed power in the Far East (wrote Hector C. Bywater, ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ naval correspondent). Formidable in itself, it gains incalculably in strategic, and, therefore, political, influence by the geographical remoteness of Japan. While Japan is able to mass her entire fleet at any point desired in the AVestern Pacific, no rival Power could utilise more than a fraction of its forces in that area without the requisite base facilities, and these do not exist. Hence the relative strength of the Japanese Navy is far greater than is indicated by a mere counting of heads. AVhen the last big shipbuilding programme was introduced the ‘Japan Chronicle ’ wrote “ This great navy is to be built solely that Japan may be able to do things on the Asiatic mainland, and present then to the world as accomplished facts, without running the risk of the Powers offering ‘ advice ’ such as they offered in 1895 regarding Liaotung. The expansion of the navy is not for the purpose of deterring protest if aggressive action should for any reason be committed.” Despite its immense political significance the Japanese Navy is never seen outside its own waters. The whole fleet is concentrated at its home bases —Yokosuka and Kure, fronting the Pacific, and Sasebo, facing the Yellow Sea. AA'henever trouble is brewing in China the Japanese fleet quietly steams round to Sasebo, and there awaits developments. As this port is only 405 miles from Shanghai. Japan could bring her full naval pressure to bear within twenty-four hours. Besides her nine super-dreadnoughts, she has nearly thirty post-war cruisers, over a hundred modern destroyers, and seventy-two submarines, many of the latter being giant boats of exceptional speed. Her naval air force is numerically second only to that of the United States. The Japanese Navy is thoroughly up-to-date in all respects. On paper, at any rate, its material is second to none. The political head is an admiral who is only nominally under the control of the Cabinet, possessing as ho docs the right of direct appeal to the throne. This circumstance may explain the tendency of the naval staff to take independent action in a crisis such as the present one. In its regime the Japanese Navy approaches the Spartan ideal. The officers are immersed in their profession. On board Japanese men-of-war I have always been impressed by the absence of personal comforts which are taken for granted in every other navy, and by the indifference of the officers to any topic of conversation which is not related to “ shop.” From person observation I should judge the Japanese Navy to be a highly efficient war machine, occupying a strategic position which would enable it to face apparently overwhelming odds with equanimity. The elimination of foreign naval bases in the AVestern Pacific, decreed by the AVashington Treaty of 1922, was a master stroke of Japanese diplomacy.