The Pacific War

ON THE WORLD TODAY

THE major part of America’s armed force overseas, Mr. Churchill pointed out, is now deployed on the Pacific front. The victory in Tunisia changed the whole balance of military forces over the entire world to such an extent that at long last the war in the Pacific could be given in word as well as in deed a full measure of significance.

The ring of fire around Japan, broken only by the comparatively short gap between the Aleutian Islands and North China, is kept alight by forces which in the aggregate rival those assembled around Western Europe. Our conquest of Attu was ascribed by the Japanese to our superiority of men and material. They were quite right. But the significance of this achievement, like that in Tunisia, can be estimated only in terms of the speed with which difficulties of transportation and production were overcome.

The logistic problems which have to be solved for an aerial offensive over Europe are simple compared with those involved in the Pacific. It is over 2800 miles from San Francisco to Dutch Harbor, and 2800 miles from there to Tokyo. San Francisco is over 7000 miles from Australia, a base without its own supply of oil. Bombers based in Australia, Newr Guinea, Guadalcanal, and the Samoa Islands have to guard an area thousands of miles in extent. The bases in India are at the end of supply lines which before the opening of the Mediterranean were 12,000 miles long. From these centers our bombers fly deep into Burma and supply our bases in China.

Nothing short of colossal efforts could have thrown this ring around Japan; only by even greater efforts can we maintain it and keep the fires burning towards the center. The war in the Pacific has only just started. We have been assured that it will be pressed with vigor and that none of the roads to Tokyo will be neglected — but there are plenty of reverses yet to come before we see much of Tokyo from the ground.

Can Japan strangle China?

The key to the Pacific war still lies in China. In spite of six years of fighting, the next few months will be the most critical of the war, as far as China is concerned. There is little use in concealing the fact that we are engaged in a race to bolster China’s defenses before Japan can break down China’s power to resist. The more planes and other weapons of war we pour into China, the more worth while it will be for the Japanese to put on a large-scale offensive.

It is not the shortage of soldiers or supplies that has kept Japan from attempting to push China out of the war by vigorous military action during the last year. Having cut off China from the outside world, it seemed cheaper from the Japanese point of view to await the slow process of strangulation. It has been Japan’s aim to starve, corrupt, and seduce China into submission.

Chinese strategy, always underestimated by us, depended in the final analysis upon the ability to rebuild an industrial base in the west. The loss of the Burma Road, among other things, killed this hope. That base has not been built.

China’s fighting fortunes suffer not only from lack of arms but also from lack of food. Even if there were enough food grown in Free China to feed everyone, which there is not, bad internal communications would prevent its distribution. Japan could afford to wait when as many men were dying in the Chinese armies from malnutrition as would normally be killed in battle. She could afford to watch as mounting inflation complicated the processes of government.

Japan had everything to gain from the enormous smuggling trade up the Yangtze River to which more and more Chinese were becoming accustomed. She had reason to hope that by showering attention and concessions upon her puppets at Nanking she could increase by contrast the bitterness of Chungking at its failure to secure more support from its allies. A political campaign took precedence over military campaigns. Chinese leaders in Chungking were constantly reminded of American exclusion laws, of their secondary place in the councils of war, and of their isolation from the rest of the world.

Japan has been deliberately following a soft policy. But we must always remember that she is ready to switch from political to military measures if the occasion demands them. Can American air power be thrown into China in sufficient quantities to hold the Japanese? Can Chinese ground forces protect the bases upon which air power depends?

The United Nations attack upon Burma becomes a necessity, not only to reopen the land route to China, but also to divert Japanese troops and supplies from a movement into Yunnan, which, should it reach Kunming, would destroy the life line of American and Chinese air power. These are the basic questions in the coming battle for China.

Can we rescue Burma?

There are other angles, however, to the opening of offensives in Asia, which are no less complicated than those of logistics. They are connected with the degree of political support we can count upon from India, Burma, and China.

The question of Burma alone raises most of the problems we face in the East — problems of Western imperialism and the future of colonial peoples, of economic rehabilitation, of the relation of the small peoples of Asia to the Chinese. There is no need to persuade the people of Burma that the former British protectorate was heaven compared with the present hell of Japanese occupation. But it is difficult to find any political symbols, other than common hatred of the Japanese, which will be agreeable to them as well as to the British, the Chinese, and ourselves.

Translated into concrete terms, the situation is one with which all military commanders are concerned. What assistance can we expect from the people of Burma in the way of anti-Japanese activities such as sabotage, spying, and non-cooperation? Will they aid our intelligence work? Will they lie of assistance to airmen shot down in battle? What sort of problems will they create behind our own lines? The answers to those questions depend upon our approaches to the broader problems.

The role of China in these matters is rightly receiving more public attention. But it is not generally realized that one of the greatest problems America has today is to secure the confidence of its ally. We have counted too long on the “reservoir” of good-will in China. The Chinese whom we know best and who look to America for leadership, who tried to “sell” China to America, are no longer powerful. The basis of their power in China — modern industry, commerce, and banking — was destroyed by the Japanese.

The men of Chungking

Those who are in power in Chungking today are “Chinese” Chinese, not American-minded Chinese, and they do not have that basic and somewhat pathetic faith in us that marked our formerly influential friends.

Many of them are men who openly admired Germany. This does not mean that they are fascists; it does mean that they are nationalists. We have had to persuade these men, as we did not the proAmerican group, of our military capacity and political virility.

The victory in Tunisia and the surrender of crack German troops are of vital importance. We sometimes forget, however, that these victories against the Axis were possible both because of our military prowess and because of our political institutions. Our successes have raised the prestige not only of our arms but also of democracy. Anything that lowers German military prestige in Europe can be used for constructive purposes in Asia.

Keep the villains in one camp

When Germany and Italy are suffering defeats, it is more important than ever before to associate them both with their ally in Asia. Japan, of course, is trying more and more to dissociate herself from Germany at this time. The amount of time that Japanese domestic propaganda devotes to German activities is surprisingly small. The news is angled in such a way as to keep up the picture of German strength in order to cheer up the Japanese public. That same audience undoubtedly knows much less about conditions in Germany than we do.

Each end of the Axis now apparently has its own “fortress” and is going to defend it in its own way. Unable to give each other military assistance, the Axis partners are finding it even more dilficult. to play a common political game. The abolition of the Comintern did nothing to assist them.

The abolition of the Comintern, however, does not of itself settle the complicated internal problems of China and its relations with the Soviet Union. The most important part of the present situation in China, as between the national government and the Communists, is that the Communist armies are in de facto control of a large area and do not take orders from Chungking.

Communism in China

No self-respecting sovereign state can permit a secessionist movement to continue any longer than it has to, whatever the political complexion of the secessionist. Yet Chungking received very little credit for agreeing to a united front with the Communists in China in order to fight the Japanese — and this after a bitter civil war during which the Communists had done almost as much as the Japanese to weaken China.

Chungking’s relations with the Communists, therefore, will depend much more on the attitude of the latter towards the question of sovereignty than on their legal relations with Moscow. And the abolition of the pact will affect China’s international position only in so far as it brings about any change, for better or worse, between the Soviet Union and the United States. The better these relations are, the better terms the Communists will get when they have had to give up their independent armies, and when they are finally forced into line with all other parties in China.

It is important that coalition should occur as soon as possible on terms acceptable to all parties, for if the issue is allowed to continue in this fashion much longer, it will lower China’s international prestige. Possibly it will also lead to very serious internal and international complications, for the dangers of Kuomintang-Communist rivalries will be greatest when the Japanese are driven back.

Gloomy war lords

The changed position of Japan was indicated by the manner in which its propagandists handled the loss of Attu. Whereas the retreat from Guadalcanal was explained away as a strategic withdrawal and naval defeats were reported back to Tokyo as Japanese victories, the loss of Attu was admitted as a Japanese defeat.

This is a major change, the probable reasons for which are significant. Why did Japan, for the first time in the war, admit defeat? Why did Tokyo admit that United States forces were superior in men and materiel? The strategic-withdrawal thesis was admittedly hard to put across while Kiska remained in Japanese hands, but this can scarcely have been the real reason.

The most plausible explanation must be the supreme need to raise morale at home. Like Germany, Japan has been unable to feed her people on a succession of easy victories. Faced now with the prospect of increasing difficulties, the army is forced to appear to the public in terms of defending the homeland and the Empire against increasing odds. The defeat at Attu was played up to impress upon the Japanese the importance of increasing production in the mines and the factories.

By anticipating American communiques on the conquest of Attu, the Japanese secured a propaganda victory. They had several days in which to present the picture of Japanese troops fighting to the last man, of deathless devotion to the Emperor. They did a great deal in this time to reinforce the myth that Japanese never surrender — a myth which must be broken down in our own minds as well as in those of the Japanese.

Tokyo changes the record

The admission of defeat at Attu completed a shift in Japanese propaganda tactics which began some months ago. As the changing military picture in the Pacific became more apparent to Japan’s leaders, the need to build up a new picture of the enemy to the public at home became more urgent. If the war was going against Japan, the morale of civilians and soldiers could not be maintained if the earlier view of the enemy prevailed. Not so long since, the Japanese people were promised early victory over America’s chocolate soldiers, its comfort-loving, decadent people, and its inefficient navy.

But now the Japanese have to be given a new picture of Americans. Now Americans have to be painted as strong, ruthless enemies. Hence the “punishment” of American flyers for their alleged bombing of women and children in Tokyo. Hence the allegation that Americans used poison gas on Attu. Hence the continual emphasis on the inhumanity of American soldiers.

According to FCC monitoring, “Enemy America,” said Radio Tokyo, “has repeatedly revealed its tendencies for inhumanitarianism in the Greater East Asia war. They have bombed or attacked our hospital ships carrying clearly visible Red Cross insignia. Although the Americans have become hysterical with successive defeats, their practices which defy humanity cannot be hated enough. It is time to further our determination to crush America, the enemy of humanity.”

Tokyo is working overtime to destroy that contemptuous attitude towards Americans that it formerly spent so much in creating. This is one of the surest signs that the tide has turned.