Japan’s Three Fatal Errors

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 197, 20 August 1943, Page 5

Japan’s Three Fatal Errors

INCAPABLE OF WAGING FIRSTCLASS WAR Received Thursday, 5.5 p.m. NEW YORK, Aug. 19. A high-ranking war plans officer of the Pacific Fleet told the North American Newspaper Alliance war correspondent, Ira Wolfert, that the Japanese committed a “mortal error” when they attacked Hawaii and the Philippines at the outset of the war. He explained that if the Japanese had bypassed the United States entirely, they might have gone down the Pacific all the way via Oceania and perhaps taken Australia and New Zealana

“while we spent the war fighting the isolationists. Then with these bases consolidated over a period of years, the Japanese could have taken whatever they wanted, including Hawaii ana even the Panama Canal, and we wouiq have lost the war for ever.” Experienced American naval officers do not understand why the Japanese did not invade Hawaii instead ol merely raiding Pearl Harbour. They explain that even if unable to hold the island, the Japanese could have wrecked the military installations and made Hawaii useless to the Allied war effort for years. The third error which the experts regard fatal is the Japanese invasion oi the Aleutians without sufficient forces to roll on to Alaska.

The correspondent adds: “The moat costly Japanese error was their overestimation of the element of mobility in aircraft construction. In order to make aircraft lighter and hence more manoeuvrable, the Japanese added too much magnesium to their alloys, thus making their machines almost as vulnerable as gasoline-soaked paper. A very significant feature of this error is the Japanese apparent incapacity to change the constructional designs oi i;heir aircraft.”

Developing the thesis that Japan is incapable of waging a first-class war, Mr. Wolfert says: “The Pacific campaigns show that the Japanese do not possess roadbuilding gear or ships to carry such heavy equipment as to enable them to work and fight effectively in terrain hostile to wheeiea vehicles. “We build roads as we fight,” writes Mr. Wolfert. “Our bulldozers land with the first waves oi troops and our engineers and construction battalions ride with the infantry against the enemy.”