A Week-end War

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 8 December 1934, Page 11

A Week-end War

ECENTLY between four and fivo mil|r« lion people were playing at war in A Japan. The play was earnest. For this not only army and navy units participated in the manoeuvres, but the entire civilian population of one of the most important industrial areas of the Empire were mobilised.” says the China Weekly Chronicle. “For two days and nights the entire plain of Yamato, proudly referred to as the cradle of the Japanese race, including the triangle of important cities, Osaka, Kobe, and Kioto, was considered to be the objective of a concerted enemy air attack. “The Japanese tend to be nervous. Pricked doubtless by the frequent reports in recent months about the ease with which Soviet bombers from Vladivostok could lay waste their vital centre of Japanese industry and shipping, the Japanese military authorities decided to stage a two-day mock air raid, all conditions of which were to simulate as nearly as practical the actual conditions of a determined ‘enemy’ effort to wipe out the cities. “Preparations were made with utmost care and with customary regard for minutiae. The regulations even prescribed the caudle-power of tail-lights allowable on automobiles during periods of first alarm; and a special unit of men were detailed to the Zoo with rifles and nets to prevent carnage if cages were destroyed and the animals escaped. “According to the reports in the Japan Chronicle, ‘the results of the first day’s air raids were proudly proclaimed to have been almost perfect.’ Apparently not an enemy aeroplane got within bombing distance during daylight, so flawless were the army’s air defences. Countless enemy aeroplanes were declared shot down by the defending aces, nor did the antiaircraft gunners have an entirely fruitless day. By night a few enemy bombers managed to elude the searchlights and other protective devices, but so perfect was the light control of the entire area that the ‘enemy’ pilots reported themselves unable to locate a single vital centre upon which to drop thir dummy bombs.” On the ensuing day a few hits were allowed hero and there, just to give the ground defence units—military, police and volunteer —sufficient practice. But even at that, the cities came through gloriously unscathed. So loud were the announcements to this effect in the vernacular papers that the now loyal citizens of the battle-tried cities must be proudly convinced of the utter impregnability of the Kwansai area from air attack.

Japan Repels Air Raiders

“Even move important will be the psychologic;! ] effect upon the people. The overwhelming success of the affair as announced in the Japanese papers is certain to have boosted the morals and military spirit of eivilian Japan several notches. It is impossible to gauge the degree of nervousness which lurid accounts of Soviet Russian ability to reduce Osaka to ashes had produced on the man in the street. And although Japanese militarists might be but little restrained by hostile public opinion in bringing on a war, yet a nervous and fidgety public would be a distinct handicap. There is little doubt that the recent manoeuvres were" calculated to allay any such fears, or that they succeeded in doing so. No matter how vigorous a policy the War Office may in future decide to dictate, there will be little popular dissension due to hidden fear of foreign air attack.” The following which appears in the Manchester Ouardian is a significant comment on the futile display referred to above: ‘‘The report that the R.A.F. is fitting silencers to its latest night- bombers is the sort of cheering news to interest civilians everywhere. What- does it mean? “Chiefly it means that the defence against aii* attack, already largely powerless, is on its way to becoming entirely so. How does one defend oneself against an aeroplane one can neither see nor hear? “Such a consummation may not be a prospect of to-day or to-morrow; it is certainly coming. The trend towards silent flight is irresistible. Commercial aviation demands it for the comfort of passengers. The general public will also demand it shortly with the extension of air routes and the growing amount of flying that is done over crowded districts. “Military aviation is thus benefiting by all the research carried out for civil purposes besides doing plenty of its own. “Now it is on the bomber’s noise that all defence against it chiefly relies. Each searchlight used in Britain’s home defence to-day lias a ‘sound locator,’ without which it is largely blind. This machine receives the sound of the enemy’s engines, plots his approximate position and course, and gives warning both to the searchlights and to the anti-aircraft guns. “It is said that the sound locators can hear hardly anything at all of machines fitted with the new silencers when they fly about 10,000 ft. Modern bombing may be done at 15,000 ft. It is one more macabre assurance for the wars of tomorrow.”