DEFEAT OF JAPAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 11 January 1944, Page 3

DEFEAT OF JAPAN

AIR PLANS OUTLINED BY HIGH-RANKING OFFICER OF U.S. ARMY AIR CORES CO-ORDINATED EFFORT BY EACH SERVICE Recently, the United States War Department presented a comprehensive analysis of the military situation to a group of 200 industrial, labour, and newspaper leaders gathered at Washington. Part of the proceedings have been released for publication. The following article is an abstract of the address of one of the higher ranking Army officers who are laying the plans for Japan’s defeat from the air, states the ‘Christian Scence Monitor”). It is by Lieut.-Colonel Frederick S. Wildman, Planning Assistant to the Assistant Chief of Air Staff, United States Army Air Corps who writes: — The general concept of defeating Japan from the air is inclined to give too great cognisance to the vastly superior resources which will be at our command after the defeat of Germany —and too little recognition to the strategic and geographic barriers which hinder us from getting at the Japanese mainland to inflict vital damage. Likewise with the impression that our Army. Navy and Air Force can attack Japan from any one of several places as soon as the necessary strength is assembled, which is far from the truth Japan schemed its war carefully and well—strategically, economically, ml psychologically—and. in doing so, capitalised upon gaining, and fortifying, every obstacle which would delay and perhaps exhaust us —and in particular in establishing defences aimed to stifle our mounting aerial power. This strategy probably was well founded—against traditional methods of attack—as our true industrial and military supremacy cannot be brought to bear against Japan itself until after tedious advance DETERMINED TO SPEED END We are determined not to go along with this kind of warfare, convinced that effective means can be developed to accelerate the employment of our vast aerial supremacy against the Japanese mainland —thereby hastening the advance of all arms. Japan has organised its basic economy into an inner zone, centring around its island empire, and an outer zone, which stretches out through the conquered areas. Parallel with the German superior-race concept, Japan has directed its principal effort toward making this inner zone a self-contained economic realm, holding substantially all of its industry, with the resources of the agrarian outer regions utilised largely for local maintenance except for those critical imports, such as heavy oil, which Japan requires to round out its industrial economy. Just as in the air war against Germany, the pattern for an early defeat of Japan is again clearly one of a progressive destruction from the air of critical targets in the Japanese indus trial economic, and military systemsselected to eliminate Japan’s capacity for effective armed resistance. We must truly destroy Japan’s ability to wage war and, if possible. do it to last through generations to come. Certainly air power is America’s most promising weapon to hasten this accomplishment AIR VULNERABILITY The Japanese already recognise—and fear —that power, realising that their great vulnerability is from the air. Japan has given impressive evidence of a capacity to produce, despite heavy losses, an increasing number of firstclass, though decidedly vulnerable, combat aircraft Because of its interlocking airfields—stretching from Formosa to Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and on through New Guinea and the Solomons to the mandated islands and the Marshalls—Japan has achieved an aerial mobility which enables it to concentrate even shortrange fighter planes speedily at any chosen point for either offensive or defensive purpose We lack areas for such overlapping bases, and are therefore required to deploy, in each of several localities, the number of aircraft essential to match the entire Japanese potential. This, should evidence the necessity both of destroying Japan’s aircraft production at its source and of a pronounced superiority of planes in the Pacific.

Another objective of our Air Force is the attrition of Japanese shipping, and particularly tankers, already strained under the burden of maintaining the enemy’s overstretched lines of supply to its new areas SHORTHANDED AT START

During the first year of the war, Japan had us shorthanded, forcing upon us, first, the necessity of parrying its blows, thereby limiting our offensive operations to strategy of the moment. In those touch-and-go days, the Army Air Forces gave evidence of their capacity to undertake either a defensive or offensive role, as necessity or opportunity made advisable. This phase has now passed. With strongly reinforced air and other forces, yve now hold the initiative ourselves and can strike at the times and places of our own choosing. While our current efforts may have caused Japan great mental discomfort, we have still not caused it any vital injury—and, in the interim, it has possessed valuable time to consolidate its defences and fortify its economy. With the defeat of Germany, our resources will be multiplied, but w e will still remain 1000 to 3000 miles from bases which permit the conduct of sustained bombing operations against the essential Japanese objectives.

The most favourable bases from which such operations might be launched lie in China, Russia thn Kuriles and Aleutions, and the islands of the Pacific.

Too often the task of aiding China is over-simplified as largely a problem of driving the Japanese out of Burma and re-opening communications over the Burma Road. This is but a small fraction of the job, which entails not only the problem of reconquering unfavourable terrain, such as Burma, but.

more pointedly, one of overcoming the limitations of supply, caused by this terrain and the meagre facilities of the country which surrounds it. FOURFOLD PROBLEM “Our problem in this area is really fourfold : 1. To bring relief to China to sustain it as an ally 0 2. To mount and supply overland operations to reconquer Burma. 3. To transport into the area the vast quantities of material needed to augment primitive communication facilities and construct heavy-bomber airfields. 4 To provide the flow of supplies necessary to support an offensive Well before such operations can cornea rrying maximum loads must be constructed. which means bulldozers, steel mats, and engineering supervision. Security of the area must be provided Because of its inaccessibility, every bit of this material must reach China by air to-day, over the most treacherous flying country in the world A large part of it must go by air because of the limited transportation and harbour facilities APPROACH FROM SOUTH An approach to Japan from the New Guinea or Dutch East Indies areas to the south is fraught with the time-con-suming task of reducing island jungle lortresses. stretching end on end over 2500 miles, before an effective air base zone can be reached. When we look to the Central Pacific, we find that Japan has developed the countless atolls of the Gilberts, Marshalls Carolines, and Marianas into mutually supporting, unsinkable aircraft carriers, each of which must be reduced or neutralised on such a line of advance. Even through the utilisation of the great Allied air forces, which will be on hand after the defeat of Germany, to accelerate our advance by hurdling intermediate islands, progress from either the South or Central Pacific will be painfully slow, as the Japanese must be literally dug or blasted out of each island reached. Air bases and aircraft maintenance facilities, anli-aircralt and other defences must be developed, as well as an assured line of supply maintained necessitating the reduction of intervening enemy strong points. This network of islands has provided the Japanese with an outpost barrier which they boast will take us years to penetrate. WEATHER DETERRENT Many persons point to the Aleutian and Kurile Islands as effective bases for the • essential bombing of critical Japanese targets Local weather conditions place a heavy restriction upon sustained operations from these areas, and the bombing of Germany has given amplie evidence that sustained operations are necessary. The volcanic terrain further limits the suitability of these islands as efficient bases for major operations Additionally, Japanese fighter-defence forces and aircraftwarning systems could be most effectively employed against us on an approach over the long chain of the Kuriles. It is inconceivable that Japan has not given cognisance to the security of its northern approaches, equal to the attention devoted to those from the south, east, and west. Railroad communications from the west into the Russian Maritime Provinces parallel the | Japanese Manchurian front for several j hundred miles, along which Japan is i reliably reported to have massed its troops. Certainly material advantage would result from the possession of bases on tlie Kamchatka Peninsula if we could develop and protect them. However, weather conditions in this area obstruct operations, as does the distance of roughly 1700 miles from the central target area of Kobe. CARRIER BOMBING Other hopeful strategists conceive of a vast aircraft-carrier armada arrayed off Japan from which repeated bombing operations might be launched While carriers are invaluable offensive weapons, we must recognise their problems of supply, and particularly their vulnerability to land-based aircraft. This certainly presents a formidable gauntlet of obstacles to hinder our getting at Japan. Suffice it to say no one is permitting himself the luxury of succumbing to them, but rather all are determined to become masters of them. Our air leaders conceive of hastening the seizure of essential advance bases through operations from the air —and of maintaining our forces in them by a hitherto unparalleled use of aerial transport planes. As our air forces drive back the enemy’s air battle line, our ground and naval forces can move forward on the surface battle lines. Such strategic bombing must be heavy in weight, consistent in effort, and condensed in time, as thinly spread attack would not achieve the cumulative undermining of the Japanese capacity to wage war. CO-ORDINATED EFFORT VITAL Co-ordinated effort by each service is an essential —with an airman running the air war, a soldier the ground war, and a sailor the naval war—lal integrated into a cohesive team as in Europe, concentrating upon the same goal—the earliest possible defeat of Japan. This is our single strategy in present plannir.il.