INDIA AS BASE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21066, 10 April 1943, Page 4

INDIA AS BASE

ALLIED OPERATIONS SWIFT DEVELOPMENT THREAT TO JAPANESE (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.) LONDON, April 8. While it is often vaguely assumed that the re-conquest of Burma will radically improve China’s military supply situation and allow a great number of Chinese troops to become active, the Manchester Guardian’s special correspondent in Chungking, who is now visiting India, is of the opinion that this unfortunately is incorrect. “It seems - that supply assistance to China cannot exceed a few tens of thousands of tons monthly 'even after the re-conquest of Burma, until the decisive weakening of the Japanese Navy permits the Allies to use_ the ports of lndo-China and South China.” The correspondent points out that the small number of British and Indian forces engaged in the present minor operation in Arakan need regular, monthly supplies equivalent to several times the highest freight total ever carried over thq Burma road to China.

While the authorities in New Delhi show the keenest interest for the earliest possible reconquest of Burma in view of the moral and slratcgic values of the oil and rice resources, they conceive it to be the task of the Indian war effort to develop India as quickly as possible into a great general supplies base for operations wherever they may occur.

The correspondent adds that the perfecting of the Indian defences has been virtually completed. There is a growing threat from the quicklydeveloping strength of the Allied base in India which is'evidently making Japan more reluctant to dissipate her forces for major drives inside China.