THE SOUTH PACIFIC

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4535, 11 February 1942, Page 7

THE SOUTH PACIFIC

JAPANESE STRATEGY UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES (“ Sydney Morning Herald ”) SYDNEY, January 22. The heavy and sustained Japanese attacks on Rabaul and other localities in the Bismarck Archipelago are important not only in themselves, but because they may provide a significant pointer to the wider uses to which the Japanese plan to put their carefullydeveloped bases in the Micronesian Islands. Such an objective would have additional justification if any wider surprise move was being contemplated by the Japanese in the central or southern Pacific. Japanese activity has so far maintained a clearly-defined strategic import, sporadic and seemingly meaningless raids fitting into a carefully pre-conceived plan. It is therefore quite possible that the attacks on Rabaul may equally well be the opening stage of some far-reaching scheme to transform strategical realities in still another - area of the Pacific.

It is not difficult to look ahead and see what aims the enemy would have in mind when the air raids on .Rabaul were made, should they turn out to be the prelude to an attempt at establishing land bases on the northern coast of New Guinea and the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago. In the long run, Japan must try to prevent the development of Australia as a great Allied mustering base, and, in particular, she must attempt to cut the sea-links between such a potential base and America. JAPANESE BASES

The Japanese bases in the Caroline and Marshall Islands stretch down to the equator, and out to beyond the one hundred and seventieth meridian. Even the southern outlier of Kapingamarangi (Greenwich Island) has proven its worth as an advanced airfield, because it was from this base that some of the long-range bombers made their reconnaissances and bombing flights over Rabaul. The Gilberts have also been bombed from Micronesian bases, and it is known that Truk, in the Caroline group, is the “ mother base ” for the whole of the Marshalls and Carolines, and has been developed to a point of relatively great strength. From the Palaus in the west to Narik in the east, Japan has built up offensive bases in archipelagoes scattered over 3300 miles of ocean, and the trial flights from Palau to Portuguese Timor demonstrated the striking range of long-distance bombers hitting outward from there.

The main Allied life-line across the Pacific runs from the American west coast to Hawaii, through Samoa and Fiji, to Australia; and it is this which the Japanese will want to cut. It is obvious that the severance of this direct line of communication would severely hamper Allied plans for concerted action against Japan, although the Tahitian route and, in case of emergency, even more southerly ones, would still remain available. The northern route through Wake and Guam, upon which no great reliance was ever placed, has already been broken, and it would merely be a logical extension of Japanese tactics now to attack the main alternative southern route. SAMOA AND FIJI American Samoa has already sustained a hit-and-run raid and were the Japanese to succeed in establishing themselves either here or at Fiji, they would occupy an exceedingly strong strategic position athwart the main trade routes of the south Pacific. The outliers of the Gilberts and the Ellice groups provide obvious stepping stones towards Samoa and Fiji, and it is by no means unlikely that the recent attacks on the northern Gilberts were trial manoeuvres in preparation for some more extensive blows.

New Caledonia occupies an equally important strategic position. Now under Free French control, the defence of the island is complicated by its topography. Covering an area 248 miles long and on an average, 31 miles wide, communications are very difficult, because of the high mountain ranges. Moreover, owing to Japanese interests in the rich nickel, cobalt, and chrome exports, there is a big enemy colony, and, although the Japanese residents were rounded up last month, it must be assumed that enemy knowledge of the country is extremely detailed.

New Caledonia has a special importance to Australia, in that it is only 900 miles from the Queensland coast, and an arc drawn through south-east-ern Queensland and northern New South Wales to show the bombing range of long-distance bombers based on island aerodromes will bring home to every Australian the full seriousness of the dangers if any enemy Power should secure a foothold on this French colony. JAPAN’S AIMS Speaking in general terms, it may be said that Japanese strategy in the south-central Pacific is distinct from

that in the East Indian archipelago, from Burma to the Moluccas, in that the south Pacific strategy is primarily aimed at securing possession of the island bases that control the long seaways and so severing Australia from outside sources of war supplies. Yet in the larger sense, both spheres of action merge into one. Apart from her own aggressive plans, .Japan is also attempting to keep her enemies outside striking distance of the Japanese mainland, and her advances in the Philippines and Malaya have strongly aided her in this regard. An extension of this process to Burma on the one hand and Australia on the other would mean the erection of a second strategical buffer, on an arch drawn over 3000 miles from the centre of Tokyo.

Grandiose as the conception may seem, it cannot be ruled out as impracticable in the light of the events of the last six weeks. But it must be realised at the outset that the difficulties are enormous. Such great distances are involved that the task of continuing communications becomes prodigious. Japan’s efforts are already extended from the Shan States in Thailand to Rabaul and the Gilberts, and, in practically every, instance, she depends upon sea-borne supplies not only in the establishment but also for the maintenance of heiconquests. PROBLEMS OF SUPPLY In every case too, supply ships have to be accompanied by naval escorts; and the time must come when even Japan’s considerable resources of naval and mercantile shipping are strained to breaking point in trying to keep up such a diffused offensive. Admiral Mahan said that Pacific strategy depended entirely upon communications, and every new belt of territory into which Japan extends her activities adds to her already great difficulties in this respect.

Present events in Malaya dispel any facile conclusions that mere factors of distance would suffice in themselves to ruin Japan’s dreams of a “ Drang nach Suden ” into the south Pacific, but it still remains true that, in the long run, Japan will find it difficult to sustain a series of attacks involving the use of fixed bases more than 3000 miles away from Tokyo, especially if each of these involves separate non-intersecting sea lanes. That would be the position if Japan attempted permanently to sever AngloAmerican communications in the wastes of the southern Pacific, and no quantity of initial local successes could conceal the ultimate Achilles heel in her strategy. x