RUSSIA IN EAST

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24244, 9 April 1942, Page 9

RUSSIA IN EAST

WHAT JAPAN FEAES VLADIVOSTOK THREAT FORTRESS AND SECRET BASE The facts about the Russian war machine have been hidden from correspondents and even from Allied military observers, states the New York journal, Collier's. Vladivostok is full of questions. Here, for the first time, are some of tho answers—a report of supreme importance by an expert observer, Major Erwin . Lessner. Vladivostok is a nightmare—to the Japanese. In May and June, 1941, I travelled through Russia and Siberia, from Moscow via Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Chita and Khabarovsk to Vladivostok. There I spent three weeks, leaving shortly before the German attack on Russia. By accident, I obtained a firsthand view of Russian preparations in Vladivostok; a diplomat who was a friend of mine and who had access to otherwise strictly closed areas took me on long walks and drives through the surrounding countryside. On these low, pointed hills, wooded islets and deep, narrow coves the fate of mankind may be decided. Vladivostok and the Russian attitude in the present Pacific conflict are of inestimable importance to the Allied cause. Vladivostok is a loaded pistol aimed at Japan's back. For the time being, Russia, aware of her strength, is waiting. Essentially, she is waiting for a change in the weather—although the possibility of other considerations cannot be entirely dismissed.

Offensive Air Base The greatest strength of Vladivostok lies in its position as an advanced offensive air base. With aerial activity impeded, the strongest weapon of the Soviets would be dplled. And although, in the maritime region, temperatures rarely drop below 20 degrees, furious ice storms rage there from December through February and sometimes later, making aeroplane take-offs difficult and for fully-loaded heavy bombers all but impossible. Like the Japanese, the Russians probably would wish to start their Eastern war with a destructive surprise blow. This blow can be struck only from "Vladivostok. The town makea a poor picture. From afar it looks as though its houses had slid from the hillsides and were hugging the shore, in constant danger of falling off and sinking like torpedoed ships. Some of its buildings are miserable wooden huts, dubiously held upright by willow webbing; others are of stone and, although mostly one-storey structures, seem about to collapse of their own weight. Population of Half a Million Only one street, the Leninskaya, is fully paved, but its ancient cobblestones have by now formed miniature mountain ranges which the visitor finds rather laborious to -traverse. The street cars vainly try to look metropolitan with their miserable coaches from which during rush hours men dangle in ragged clusters. The civilians in the streets —mostly Russians, with an occasional admixture of Buriats, Mongolians and other natives of the neighbouring steppes —are poorly clad. Only soldiers and sailors are well uniformed, well shod and flawlessly equipped. Vladivostok is an industrial town, but its industry serves destructive rather than constructive ends. It is fortress, naval base and air base. The Soviet statisticians give Vladivostok a population of half a million. However, more than 250,000 persons are not living in the miserable houses, but in the invisible quarters of the army, navy and air force—partly underground, fully protected and enormously strong. Vladivostok is no military hinterland. It is the well-prepared front of the coming total war.