JAPAN’S MANCHURIAN ARMY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5596, 24 March 1943, Page 2

JAPAN’S MANCHURIAN ARMY

KWANTUNG DIVISIONS MAY ATTACK CHINA

Well-informed Chinese circles have reason to believe that the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria is getting more and more restive and demands to be given a fighting task. The Kwantung Army, originally established on the Liaotung Peninsula, and since 1932 the military, political, and economic master of Manchuria, has regarded itself as the spearhead of Japanese expansion and the flower of the Japanese fighting services. It always has taken it for granted that in any major Japanese war agression it would play the leading role and justify its bold claim to a special role in Japanese affairs in general. But the Kwantung Army was from one year to another frustrated in its grandiose scheme of conquest. In 1932, it was prevented by the High Command at home from rushing through Manchuria into the Soviet Union. From 1932 to 1937 its provocation of hundreds of Soviet Manchukuo “border incidents” led to nothing but abundant proof that the Soviet Union was getting better and better prepared against attacks which made the authorities in Tokyo even more adamant in their refusal to let the Kwantung Army go ahead. With the outbreak of the SinoJapanese war in 1937, other Japanese armies snatched the laurels of aggression from the Kwantung Army. It continued quietly to use its great political influence in Tokyo to obtain a large share of Japanese industrial production for equipment of its own industrial war bases in Manchuria. It claimed an equally large share of armament production for mechanisation and expansion of its land and air forces, but lost much of its reputation for supreme usefulness in the imperial cause, especially when corruption began to spread in its ranks in consequence of inactivity. HOTHEADS RESTRAINED At the outbreak of the Soviet-Ger-man war in 1941, hotheads of the Kwantung Army again were held back by Tokyo and the Pacific war diverted public attention more than ever to other units of the Japanese Army and to the Navy. The present crisis of acute restiveness is reported to be due to the growing improbability of war between Japan and the Soviet Union. Military authorities in Manchuria and Japan are becoming convinced (1) that the opportunity of an attack has once more been missed, and (2) that Moscow will not increase and prolong the ordeal of the Soviet people beyond the task of defeating Germany, however tempting it might be to help its Allies by an attack on Japan after victory in Europe. On these assumptions, the very premise on which the Kwantung Army was built up, expanded, and pampered would cease to exist. A considerable part of the 30 or 35 crack divisions in Manchuria, with their large air force, would no more be required where they are, and the Kwantung Army would, for the first time in its 40 years’ history, be forced to turn away from its time-honoured anti-Russian aims, to forget its dreams of glory, and try to stave off disaster for Japan by action in other fields. CONCRETE DEMANDS The concrete demands for use of all its dispensable land and air forces are reported to be as follows: 1. A large part of the Kwantung Army is to be centred on Burma in order to secure Japanese defences

against Allied counter-attacks on the broad western flank of Japan’s continental position. The alternative of using those additional forces in Burma for an invasion of India seems to be excluded for the time being, since the entire scheme of the Kwantung Army apparently is based on the very plausible theory that Japan cannot ord any fresh adventures, but concentrate all its efforts on securing what it already had conquered;

2. A fraction of the increased Burma garrison should be used, together with additional units in French IndoChina, for attacks on China’s southwestern Province of Yunnan, with the purpose of isolating Chungking and the heart of Free China from India and thereby Allied supplies;

3. Reinforcements from the Kwantung Army should be sent to certain parts of Central China, mainly in the area near the city of Hengyang in the Province of Hunan, with the aim of pushing the Chinese armies back beyond the radius from which Allied bombers might be able to reach Japan or Formosa.

The plan sounds easier of execution than it probably is, on account of the difficulties of communications involved. It seems, in fact, that a much larger part of Japan’s reserves from home, as well as from Manchuria, probably would have been sent to different theatres long ago had it not been for the difficulties of communication, which make any further large-scale expansion of Japan’s overseas forces extremely risky. The Kwantung Army certainly is a formidable force on its own ground, but its power is due mainly to the fact that its needs of shipping space for supplies are extremely small, while it is in Manchuria. The development of that rich country during 10 years of intensive preparations for war against the Soviet Union has given it a powerful supply base of its own, on which it can depend for most needs, from food and clothing to iron and steel, coal and oil, from munitions to guns and tanks. Even the goods still needed from Japan have only to be ferried from one railhead to another, across very short distances.

Away frdm Manchuria, however, any part of the Kwantung Army will be dependent upon shipborne supplies, and Japanese shipping shortage is so great now that Chinese experts are doubtful whether one half of the present Kwantung Army, in addition to the troops already overseas, could be maintained in distant areas.

These reports about demand of the Kwantung Army for action once more are giving rise to speculation about the possibility of a Japanese all-out attack on China. So far, there does not seem to be any sign of concrete preparations toward that end, and recent Japanese activity along the tooshort front line on the fringe of Yunnan Province, as elsewhere, has been on a small scale. But those in Chungking who have for about six months predicted a great Japanese drive in China feel confirmed in their belief. Their argument now runs as follows: Japan realises it cannot afford to attack either Russia or India, and that a major campaign against Australia has become impossible. The deterioration of Germany’s position makes it even more imperative for it to conserve its remaining strength and prepare the best possible basis for years of defensive, in the hope of wearing out the Allies. For this purpose Japan must try to liquidate China by means of a large offensive.