New Pacific

The world and World War II changed last week. By their conquest of Java, the Japanese split the far Pacific. Its vast expanses ceased to exist as a single Allied war area. The great zone of strategy, action and command became a set of separated zones.

Inevitably, in advance of Java's fall, the Allies dissolved the unified system of command which they had established to direct the far Pacific war from Java. General Sir Archibald Wavell, the Supreme Commander, flew in a U.S. plane from Java to Ceylon, then to India and Burma, then into China, then back to India. Like writing on a wall, his travels traced the perils which the U.S., Great Britain and their allies must now face, the changes which they must deal with and somehow use for victory.

Wavell for India. Of all the new zones of war, India was suddenly paramount. As a central Allied base for supplies and offensive action, it loomed even above remote Australia (see p. 21). To hold India, to bring its masses into the war, Britain must pay a price, both politically (see ,p. 26) and militarily. General Wavell, therefore, was taking no back seat when he resumed his command of India's (and Burma's) forces.

The Allies had to write off southern Burma (see p. 20). General Wavell now had to prepare the defenses of India proper. Defending India, he also defends China and its last supply routes. He defends Russia on India's north. He defends Suez and the Middle East from an east-west Nazi-Japanese pincer. Above all, for the final phase of World War II, he defends in India a necessary Allied supply center and base for future offensive action through China.

Ceylon for Wavell. At the southern nub of India, where the Indian Ocean meets the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, lies a focal center of General Wavell's task: Britain's island of Ceylon.

Holding Ceylon, Wavell holds the sea entrances to India's eastern ports (Madras and Calcutta) which are also inlets for China's supplies. On Ceylon is Trincomalee, Britain's secondary naval base, immensely important now that Singapore is gone. Trincomalee is now the Allies' only useful naval base north of Capetown and east of Suez. Whoever holds Trincomalee and Ceylon's airdromes holds the key to the Indian Ocean and all its vital sea routes between Africa, Australia, India and the Middle East. Without Trincomalee and Ceylon, the Japanese can make Allied transport in the Indian Ocean dangerous and expensive. With Ceylon, they could make it almost impossible.

Last week, when the Japs bombed the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, they were softening up a way station on the invasion road to Ceylon. And Ceylon, just 60 miles off southern India, is a way to invasion of India itself. It could even be a substitute for invasion. With eastern India bottled up, with ships and planes in position on Ceylon to raid even the Indian routes to the vital ports of Bombay and Karachi on the Arabian Sea, Japan could well let India soften and crumble under blockade.

Chiang for China. When General Wavell landed at Lashio in China, he did not receive Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. The Generalissimo received Wavell. The meeting was a seal upon China's final admission to full estate among the Allies. It was also a belated recognition that China may yet be the only front for a direct land and air assault on Japan, that planes and tanks and heavy artillery for China may yet make the difference between victory and defeat in the Far East.

Australians for Australia. Simply by omitting Australia from his prodigious swing, General Wavell accented that menaced Dominion's status as an important and lonely zone. Even as the unified Command was dissolving, Australians complained that it had never been wholly unified or wholly effective. They took command of Australia for themselves, with their tough, hard-talking, fast-moving Lieut. General Sir Iven Mackay at the top. No sooner had they done so than the Jap appeared on the horizon (see p. 21).

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