The Wilmington morning star., 1944-03-24
Interpreting
The War
By KIRKE L. SIMPSON
Associated Press War Analyst

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Plotted on any map of the in
dian-Burmese border large enough
to show road, rail and river COM
munications which dominate battle
logistics, the Japanese invasion of
Assam from the Upper Cindwin
region in Burma makes little
sense. It seems no more than a
Tokyo-born forlorn hope of melting
a wholesale revolt in India-or a
bit of Nipponese home front prop
uganda window dressing to afford
Premier Tojo's reference to the
multiple front japanese surge
across the Chindwin River and the
Assam border to within 80 miles
of the Imphal roadhead town
from the south and east significant.
He did not report it as a Japanese
enterprise, but as an attack by
the Indian national army with
the ''Cooperation of (Japanese)
imperial forces" If it fails of the
grandoise design TOTO assigned to
it, the repulse of Allied military
forces in India and the placing of
all India under authority of 1.-THE
free India provisional govern
ment," obviously it will be Tokyo
ascribed to Indian not Japanese
collapse.
Yet short of wholesale upris-
ing not in Assam alone but
throughout India to support jap
anese puppet regime, the invasion
of India certainly is doomed to
failure. Even while admitting a
surprise japanese penetration at
two or more points to endanger
Impahl, spokesman for Admiral
Lord Mountbatten, Allied COM
handkerchief in the Burma-In-
dia theater, dismisses the incur
sion as of small consequence in
the southern eastern Asia mill
tary equation as whole unless it
picks up Indian recruits.
Regardless of the number of JAP
anese troops engaged, they are at
the end of the longest and most
difficult supply line anywhere in
! the Nipponese conquest perimeter.
It runs eastward across the Chind-
win River to the Burma railway,
southwark. to some point on the
Bengal Bay coast of Burma, by
sea to the straits of Malacca be.
tween Sumatra and the Malay pen
insula and thence into the China
Sea and up it's whole length tc
Japan. Even without the activities
of British submarines in the west
ern approaches to the Malacca
Strait bottleneck or the obvious
danger that the rail lines in cen
trail Burma south of the Upper
Chindwin might be Allied cut or
bombed out of commission, no Of
fensive operation of any size could
be mounted or long sustained un-
der such conditions.
To. meet the Japanese threat to
Imphal Allied forces in India have
available unquestionable air COM
mand, plus the road and rail net
work east of the Ganges and the
Gauges itself to shuttle troops and
supplies as needed and a tremen-
dous numerical superiority. Imphal
itself is road head, not a point
where Allied military traffic could
be interrupted by its fall.
If it is not merely a japanese
gesture for propaganda purposes,
the invasion of India could have
only one other meaning. 1t might
represent growing fear in Tokyo
that the Allied successes in clear
ing northern Burma are bringing
dangerously near the hour when
the Ledo Road from India to China
will begin pouring supplies into
China to make it the gravest
threat to Nipponese China Sea
traffic and to Japan itself.
Tokyo is now within bomber
range from the east. Completion
Of the Ledo Road will mean cross
fire bombing of Japan and there
is not much the japanese invasion
of India from Burma can do to
prevent that sooner or later, or
even to delay it so far as the
factors involved are now available
| to public.