JAPAN’S WEAKNESS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20649, 27 December 1941, Page 7

JAPAN’S WEAKNESS

SHORTAGE OF OIL , DUTCH INDIES STORE NEW YORK, Dec. 19. "If Japan is held from the Dutch East Indies, her attack on Hawaii will have been in vain,” writes M. George Sokolsky, in the New York Sun. M. Sokolsky was formerly editor of the Shanghai Far Eastern Review. “Japan’s immediate objectives art to immobilise the United States Pacific Fleet and to obtain Dutch East Indies oil," he writes. "The American Fleet in the Pacific has not been immobilised. The line that runs from Hawaii to Manila and on to Singapore is still in Anglo-American hands. Japan must render the Philippines and Singapore impotent if free access to the Dutch IJast. Indies is to be hers., "No matter how large Japan s oil stocks, they must be replaced as used. She cannot replac.e them within her own territory in quantities to aid her in this war. \ “It is known that Japan was short of both Diesel and turbine oil at the outbreak of this war. Therefore; Japan’s most urgent need is, the tremendous oilfields and refining plant of the Dutch Indies. If Japan gets these, she can refuel her fleet and aeroplanes for an indefinite period. If she fails, she can ■continue the war only so long as her present oil stocks hold out, plus the negligible supply from her Empire. ‘‘This is a war of natural resources and manufacturing. The nation most blessed in natural resources and mo:; competent in the organisation anu management of production will be able to hold out the longest. "United States oil reserves are within United States borders; Japan must win her oil reserves by the conquest of the Dutch East Indies against the combined forces of the United States, Britain and the Dutch.”