G.I.View

INTELLIGENCE After three years of war in the Pacific, U.S. military officials have put together a careful, composite picture of the Japanese soldier. Last week the Office of War Information reported this G.I. view of the man U.S. troops have fought from Guadalcanal to Leyte.

P: The average Jap soldier (5 ft. 3 in., 117 1/2lbs.), is five inches shorter, some 28 lbs. lighter than the average G.I. Nevertheless he can lift a 150-lb. weight to his back without spreading his legs; a Jap battalion can march more than 20 miles a day; special patrols have been known to cover 60 miles on foot between midnight and the next afternoon.

P: With two years of high school, the average Jap soldier is as well educated as the average G.I. and in at least one respect a lot better. Almost half of all Jap soldiers have studied English; almost one-fourth of them can speak English "efficiently."

P: He is well trained and so are his officers. His military schooling began when he was eight, with at least two hours' drill a week. For all able-bodied males between 17 and 40, military service is mandatory.

P: He is inventive and cunning, he can penetrate any kind of terrain. As a fighter he as probably the equal of the U.S. soldier in every respect except one: initiative.

P: He fights for a pittance. A full general is said to get the equivalent of $126.50 a month. A corporal gets $4.60 a month; a new second class private, $1.38.

P: He eats a third less than the U.S. soldier and can get along on much less than that. His usual ration in active theaters is about 3 1/2 lbs. a day, mostly rice, generously supplemented with vitamin pills.

P: His equipment is fair. His greatest lack is artillery. If he is wounded he gets only second-rate treatment, by U.S. standards. Many of the drugs he uses have been discarded in U.S. and European circles. There is no evidence that his medical corps uses blood plasma.

P: One of his chief weaknesses is instability. Reared in Japan's feudal atmosphere, savagely repressed all his life, he is apt to blow up in tight spots, make "banzai" suicide charges, commit harakiri. Victorious, he swells with arrogance and takes his repressions out on helpless prisoners.

P: There are at least 4,000,000 of him. U.S. soldiers have killed a "minimum of 277,000" (according to OWI). U.S. dead in the Pacific war total 21,000--a ratio of 1-to-13. Since 1937 Jap losses in dead are estimated at 850,000. More than a quarter of a million are now "isolated in island pockets," bypassed by the U.S. drive to the west. But there are still plenty of reserves. Japan can train and equip 2,000,000 more soldiers without hurting war production.

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