JAPAN’S STRENGTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 4 November 1942, Page 3

JAPAN’S STRENGTH

LEGENDS OF INFERIOR ARMS FACTS NOW FACED BY UNITED NATIONS Back in America from his coverage of the South-West Pacific, in the course of which he visited New Zealand, Joseph C. Harsch, staff correspondent of “The Christian Science Monitor,” tells how the Japanese kept up the illusions of the United Nations and how the fairy tale of the weakness of the Japanese has been erased. The wsetern world’s choicest collection of modern fairy tales has been buried under the debris of Hong Kong and Singapore, Burma and Java, Pearl Harbour and Manila Bay. It is hardly necessary to recall them. Almost every living Amer-i ican and Britisher has been brought I up on them from the cradle. You I remember, don’t you, the one about ‘ the phony set of blueprints for a ship; which the Japanese followed slavishly—and the ship turned over when it was launched? And the repeated assurances that the Japanese could never fly planes, or bomb accurately? And the comfortable legend that the only asset of the Japanese High Command was an unusual readiness of the Japanese soldier to die for.his country? There were dozens more which cropped up in changing guise every time the conversation in some An-glo-American Club turned of an evening to Japan and its ambitions. There was never a dearth of expert opinion on the weaknesses of the Japanese economic, industrial and financial systems. Our press was filled with such comforting assurances even after Pearl Harbour. Legends die hard. Many of our old fairy tales still persist. An extremely competent book, in most respects, on the general war situa-

tion is just out—written after Japan’s great victories—which still falls into the old pitfall of stating that any soldier of the United Nations is individually the equal of from four to ten soldiers of any Axis power. This might conceivably be accurate in respect to Italy because the Italians have no heart in this war, although the Italian soldier has proven on occasion that he can fight as well as most people when he believes in his cause and wants to fight. But anyone who thinks that this applies to the Japanese soldier of to-day is just kidding himself cruelly. Ask an American soldier who foLight in the Philippines, a ‘Tommy” who fought in Malaya or an Australian who tried to hold Rabaul if he thinks he can handle ten Japs all by himself. His reply will be unprintable sharply tinged with bitterness. He is inclined to think that this particular fairy tale was invented by economy-minded Parliamentarians or Congressmen who used it to justify woefully insufficient pre-war expenditures for guns and tanks and planes. Our soldier wants to be inside the best and most expensive tanks possible before he faces odds of ten to one. And he doesn’t want the Japs he has to fight to have any tanks either when he fights at those odds. TIME TO FACE FACTS It’s high time we became honest with ourselves. The facts are written across the face of a hemisphere from the Aleutian Islands to Port Darwin and from Pearl Harbour to Ceylon. Let’s face the facts, because the sooner we face them the sooner we will win this war. Here they are, as thousands of American, British and Dutch soldiers and sailors have found them in scores of battles. The Japanese makes a first class soldier. He has his weaknesses but on the average he is no better and no worse than any other good soldier. It certainly does not take ten or even four Japanese to equal one American or British or Dutch soldier under otherwise equal conditions.

He fought with many advantages which our boys did not have. He had the enormous advantage of being on the offensive and of fighting under plans and with weapons which were carefully devised for the particular job at hand. But don’t forget that those are preparations which contribute to morale and win battles. He had those advantages. But he has proven himself a hard fighter and an able soldier.

One of the big surprises of this war has been the competence of the Japanese High Command and the high quality of its strategy. It has proven a surprising ability to improvise with developments. The basic plan evidenced in most campaigns to date has been to launch throe simultaneous attacks and then develop the most promising as the battle progresses. The plans have been simple, orthodox and flexible. They worked.

Another big surprise was the product of Japan’s aviation industry. It had been assumed that Japan had progressed only to the point of being able to copy types of planes developed in other countries more advanced industrially. This was partly true, but only partly. Japanese aircraft engines are still copies, sometimes exact ones, of foreign engines. Their plane designs are still modifications of foreign designs. But by such modification they did produce the Japanese Navy “Zero,” which is the most effective plane for its purposes on the Japanese front. ZEROS START OFF ON TOP The “Zero” is not the best fighter on the Japanese front. In terms of structural quality it is inferior to the American planes which had to meet it. But its very structural inferiority gave it the important advantage of being able to climb faster, turn quicker, and operate at higher altitudes than the planes it

was designed to fight- Its effective ] fighting “ceiling’ ’is about 5,000 feeti higher than that of our fighters. In battle they always start off with the advantage of being “on top.” This advantage was the biggest single shock which our anticipations re- [ ceived during the early months of war in the Pacific. Previous to the outbreak of war with Japan it was assumed that Brewster Buffaloes would be adequate to cope with the best Japanese fighter. The Japs themselves were careful to preserve this illusion until the Malaya campaign. They used older planes at Pearl Harbour, saving their surprise for the right moment. The result was that Singapore and Java were stocked with the sturdy old “Buffaloes,” and very little of anything more modern. The writer saw “Buffaloes” go up to meet “Zeroes” in Java. The “Zeros” stay- | ed up in the air and the “Buffaloes” I came down. We had kept our HurI ricanes and Spitfires, our P-39s and ' P-40s for other fronts, thinking they ! were not needed against the Japanese. On the Australian front our pilots finally had P-39s and P-40s, which accounts for the changed odds when the fighting reached the Australian air front. Another big Japanese surprise, probably the biggest and most important of all in the broad sense although less spectacular than the appearance of the “Zero,” was the performance of the Japanese transportation and supply system. It was better than first class. It was something new in warfare. We still don’t know all the secrets of how the Japanese do it. But we do know that they move units from point to point wth a speed of which the United Nations are not yet capable. The Japanese may be imitators, but they have bettered their models in many respects. The Germans never used torpedo planes as effectively as the Japanese did when they

sank the Prince of Wales and the Repulse off Singapore- No one has ever been more skilful than the Japanese in devising weapons for patricular types of problems. Their small calibre “Tommy gun” would be inferior in open warfare, but it was the ideal thing for jungle fighting. The quality and the handling of Japanese warships needs no comment. It has proved itself in too many battles. RICH SUPPLIES IN BOOTY Japanese shortages in raw materials unquestionably were dangerous for them at the outset of the war. But they started the war to escape these shortages. They accumulated enough reserves to fight the first campaign. And in that campaign they conquered what they needed to fight more. They obtained one of the world's great treasure houses in Malaya and the East Indies. Despite the excellent demolition work of the Dutch in the East Indies, the Japanese no longer need concern themselves about oil supplies. Some fields in Borneo were not destroyed. Some fields under Dutch control contained oil so near the surface that demolition could

not prevent renewal of production in a very short time. And nothing has been done since the capture of these oil fields to disturb the reopening of the wells.

Meanwhile they obtained all the rubber and tin they need and substantial sources of rice, which is their food staple. It was a comfortable assumption before the war began that we could defeat Japan easily because our resources were so much greater. But Japan has been busily engaged in taking those resources away from us. It is we to-day who face shortages of rubber and tin. cocoa, coffee and tea. and dozens of other raw materials necessary both to war effort and to normal civilian life.

In other words Japan has proven an unexpected ability to produce the weapons of war and to use them with ingenuity and adaptability.