Fleets and Bases

Southland Times, Issue 25335, 11 April 1944, Page 4

Fleets and Bases

In this way the offensive gains simultaneously in strength and momentum. That fact seemed to be in the mind of the official spokesman in Tokyo who declared that the Allies “have abandoned their former isle-to-isle strategy and are now applying jumping tactics.” From the Japanese point of view, the outlook must be disturbing. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour she had three great advantages: the third largest navy in the world; a screen of island bases, stretching from home waters to the outer Pacific; and a strategic plan which, by crippling the American Pacific fleet in the first hours, was to give her a naval supremacy in her own theatre. Her leaders, however, seemed to overlook two complementary facts: the recuperative power of American industry, and their own productive weakness. These facts were emphasized when the Americans won the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and the Solomons. The Japanese have lost ships more rapidly than they can replace them. They are defending a line of bases which runs from the Kuriles in the north, through Wake, and across the Carolines and the Netherlands East Indies to the coast of Burma in the Bay of Bengal—a distance of about 10,000 miles. To hold these emended outposts and communications, the Japanese are believed to have not more than 225 fighting ships. The American fleet is far larger, and it is being sup-poi-ted by a growing British fleet in the Indian Ocean. Numbers alone are not decisive. But the Americans have outfought the Japanese whenever the two forces have clashed, and they have gained an air supremacy both in number *and quality. This offensive advantage is necessary, and it may not bring quick results in the early stages. The Japanese are falling back from their outer defences upon an inner zone wherein their reduced strength can be used more effectively. Meanwhile the Allies have to seize new bases, refit them for operations, and hold their striking force at the end of long communications. The final land offensive will have to be supplied by sea. Clearly, therefore, the enterprise remains difficult and costly; it rests upon a sea power that, formidable though it has become, will provide no easy victory. Japan lost the war from the moment that America regained naval supremacy. The sea and air fleets have been mobilized, and they have been moved skilfully and successfully into strategic positions. Henceforth the pressure will be applied increasingly from an offensive system that dominates the Pacific. But it is well to remember that the long advance across the Pacific is an advance towards continental bases, and that not until these have been gained will it be possible to see the climax of the war against Japan.