Evening star., 1943-04-01
Pressure Urged to Stop
japanese Expansion
Mai. Eliot Discusses Need
To Prevent Exploitation at
Of Occupied Territories
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.

SSSPsSN
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
There is one very important factor
which affects the Far Eastern theater
OF war and all that we do in connection
Herewith. That is the need for seeing
to it that the Japanese do not grow
stronger by exploiting the resources of
the territories which they have occupied.
The basic Japanese strategy was to seize
the Netherlands Indies, the Philippines,
Malaga and Burma, and with the oil,
iron, tin, rubber and other resources
thus obtained, to make up for the loss
OF imports which necessarily followed
their entry into the war
The Japanese hoped that they would
be able to make themselves so strong in
this fashion that. with the additional
protection of distance, they would soon
be able to defy any effort on the part of
the United Nations to deprive them of
their loot. They counted on Anglo
American Russian preoccupation with
Germany for sufficient period to enable
them to overcome the effects of sabotage
and begin to cash in on their investment,
To what extent they have already
begun to do so is of course uncertain. But
it is doubtful whether they have as yet
gotten enough to replace their losses in
shipping, aircraft and other material.
Their difficulty lies in the TACT that the
regions from which they draw these
resources are not industrial regions. In
order to process the iron, tin etc., 1t has
to be transported to Japan in ships. The
Japanese do not have enough ships, and
those they have must be conveyed and
are subject to constant attack by Ameri-
can submarines. The Japanese are now
engaged in bitter struggle in the South
west Pacific to keep us from moving our
submarine bases closer to their shipping
lanes, and this procedure is causing them
further heavy losses in the very shipping
which 1t is designed to protect.
Likewise the British pressure in Burma,
though 1t has not achieved much on the
map, has compelled the Japanese to keep
ships moving on their longest sea route
that around the Malayan peninsula to
Rangoon. The maintenance of the JAP
anese garrison at Kiska has also been
expensive in shipping. On the whole it
may be said that SO far the Japanese
have probably not had net gain as
respects materials transported from their
conquered areas to the centers of jap
anese industry.
However, 1t is necessary to realize that
the Japanese may, for the time being,
abandon all, together any thought of
offensive operations, may concentrate on
maintaining tight defensive in the
Pacific, Burma and even in China, and
may turn all their efforts toward indus
trial and economic rehabilitation in pre-
paration against the day when GERMANY
may be beaten and they may have to face
a world IN arms against them. In such
case, they could not hope for victory
but they might hope to make that victory
cruelty expensive. 1t is, therefore, Of
great Importance that the Japanese
should not only be prevented from
expanding their area of conquest, should
they attempt to do so. but also that
constant pressure should be maintained
on their lines of communication so that
they can never show a net gain of loot
as against losses.
This may be partially accomplished by
the conquest of Rabaul, bringing our
submarines much closer to their main
operating areas south and east of japan.
1t would be definitely accomplished If the
United Nations were also able to set up
strong air and submarine bases on the
coast OF China, commanding the Strait
OF Formosa, through which passes the
bulk of the Japanese shipping between
japanese ports and those of the Nether-
land East Indies and Malaga.
These two operations would tend to
compliment each other for Japanese
ships would then have the unenviable
choice of trying to run the gantlet of
planes and short-range submarines in
the Formosa Strait or of going outside
Formosa within comfortable reach of the
long-range submarines from Rabaul.
In order however, to be really effective,
1t would be necessary that the bases on
the Chinese coast should be well equipped
and should be in daily receipt of a con-
siderable volume of supplies, fuel oil and
bombs. We therefore get back to the old
problem OF reopening the communica-
tions between India and China, and the
question of the ALLEGATION of forces and
materials to this task must be considered
not wholly as an unwarranted detach-
ment from the main and immediate lob
OF beating Germany, but also with the
constant remembrance that while Ger
many Is being beaten, Japan must not
be allowed to grow stronger.
tcopyrisht, 1943, N. Y. Tribune, Inc)