Arms Across the Sky

The Japanese, with their tiny torsos and their bandy legs, have arms 1,200 miles long. For that is the length of the reach that counts--the effective reach of their bombing planes.

This fact makes a lot of difference in the Battle of the Pacific. It means that from bases which the Japanese already control they can bomb most of China, all of Burma, a quarter of India, all of The Netherlands East Indies (including the Allies' present naval headquarters, Surabaya) and a big piece of Australia (including the Allies' likeliest next naval headquarters, Darwin).

Far worse than that, this simple fact means that if the Japanese succeed in snatching the threatened Indies and threatened Free French New Caledonia, they will be able to cover almost half the Indian Ocean and more than half of Australia. Furthermore, they will be able to punch at three more potential Allied naval headquarters, Colombo, Sydney, Auckland.

If this sorry pass comes, the Allies will have only Melbourne, which really is down under, and Pearl Harbor, which is half way across the Pacific, on which to base their war against Japan securely.

To retrieve this really desperate situation, the Allies must do three things. Last week they did all three in a small way:

1) They must hold on to what they have like so many bulldogs. This they did at least in the Philippines.

2) They must gradually build up air bases and numerical air strength. This they did in many secret ports and at many hidden fields.

3) They must take daring and frequent bites into the periphery of the Japanese bombing sphere. This they did, with dash and daring, in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands (see col. 3).

The Allies may be able to knock out the little men with the terribly long arms, but great diligence and terrific effort are now required.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.