The Uncovered Way

For three years the South China Sea had been the "covered way" of Japan's outer fortress. Through its reaches, protected by thousands of miles of outposts, Japanese convoys could ply between the home islands and the conquered south.

Last week the cover was ripped off. Big, fast carriers of Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet, which had been sending air groups to hammer Formosa and Luzon, swung southwest through Luzon Strait from the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea.

There U.S. warplanes had a good haul. They sank 41 enemy ships and damaged 28 more (almost 200,000 tons). The toll included two entire convoys, a Katori-class light cruiser and the dismantled French cruiser Lamotte-Picquet. But the most damaging blows were the sinkings of tankers bearing oil from the Indies and strikes against oil refineries at Saigon. The enemy put up what aircraft he could to defend his supposedly sheltered outposts; 112 were shot down.

While intelligence officers were still compiling the results of these assaults, the Halsey force swung back to the north. A combat air patrol (200 planes, by enemy count) went to work on Formosa. But there were enough planes left to make carrier-aviation history, by swooping down on the China coast to attack Amoy, Swatow and the captive British colony of Hong Kong.

From Singapore to Formosa to Tokyo, meanwhile, the B-29s flying from India, China and Saipan gave the enemy no rest. Every arm of air and sea-air warfare was swinging heavy and repeated blows to keep the enemy reeling while the landing on Luzon was made good.

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