Burma Road Would Give Japs Tough Time

Northern Advocate, 15 November 1941, Page 5

Burma Road Would Give Japs Tough Time

(Rec. 2 p.m.) LONDON. Nov. 14. President Roosevelt, according to a Washington message, has announced his decision to withdraw all American marines at present stationed at Shanghai, Tientsin and Peiping, but the gunboats on the Yangtse River will not be affected, because they are naval forces. Japanese troops are going to have a tough time if they move against the Burma Road, said Mr. Marco Heilman, transportation expert, who has returned from China. The Japanese would have to cross terrific mountain country which the Chinese can easily defend, he said. Will Bomb Indo-China The Chinese threaten that they will bomb military bases in Indo-China if the Japanese open their attack from that territory. A Chungking spokesman reported large-scale Japanese troop movement in Indo-China. The Japanese are reported in a Hongkong message to be massing troops, tanks, artillery and aeroplanes in the Canton area. All traffic on the river at Canton has been stopped. Bound to Fail Major Fielding Eliot, writing in the “New York Herald-Tribune,'’ predicts that Singapore is likely to get six British battleships and two or three aircraft carriers as a result of American naval assistance in the Atlantic. This force, he says, would not be enough to attack the Japanese fleet in its home waters, but the Japanese would not then be able to seek out British ships near Singapore and destroy them because of British and Dutch shore-based bombers and submarines.

“The Japanese doom will be sealed by the presence of these ships,” says Major Eliot. “She will be able to keep only a precarious link with the Asiatic mainland, and her only means of relief would be to attack and destroy a superior American fleet and then turn on the British fleet. “Japan is thus caught in a trap of her own making. She has not the remotest chance of victory on land, sea or air if she resorts to arms.” The general opinion in Singapore is that Britain will send two large aircraft carriers out there.

New Instructions to Envoy The Japanese Cabinet is reported in a Singapore message to have sent urgent new instructions to the Japanese envoy en route to the United States (Mr. Kurusu). These instructions are believed to follow Mr. Churchill’s warning to Japan and the visit to the Foreign Office of the British Ambassador (Sir Robert Craigie). Mr. Kurusu has left Honolulu by air for Washington. In an interview he said he was engaged in a very difficult and important mission, but he was most hopeful that peace between Japan and’America might be assured. The latest poll of public opinion in the United States is that 64 per cent, cf the voters are in favour of the United States’ entry into the war now to prevent Japan becoming more powerful in the Pacific. Preparing for Worst A Singapore message states that the Japanese evacuation ship Asama Maru has arrived, bringing a number of British subjects. It will sail on Saturday with 450 Japanese evacuees for Manila, where it will pick up more Japanese. It is reported that all Japanese residents of Kuantan have been ordered to evacuate within a fortnight. This move is one of many to clear vital east ccast areas of Malaya of possible trouble makers. British subjects in Hongkong have been asked to register for evacuation.