Toward a Jap Defeat?

"Regardless of the enemy design," said the voice from Tokyo, "the war situation has increased with unprecedented seriousness--nay, furiousness." Some examples: > Off the China coast Claire Chennault's Fourteenth U.S. Air Force got its biggest weekly bag of the war: 27,000 tons of Jap shipping definitely sunk. > Against "negligible" resistance Admiral William F. Halsey's amphibious troops took the Green (Nissan) Islands between Bougainville and New Ireland, cut off an estimated 22,000 Japs in the Northern Solomons, ended the Solomons campaign. > Rabaul declined further as an effective Jap base as U.S. and Australian flyers sank twelve ships.

> Before the week ended, Kavieng (New Ireland) and once mighty Rabaul suffered the indignity of being shelled by destroyers' 5-in. guns.

^ From Washington the Navy announced that two submarines had returned to report sinking 13 more Jap merchantmen. ^ But the most impressive attacks were made in the Central Pacific, where frosty-eyed, newly promoted Admiral Raymond Spruance and his Central Pacific Fleet bored swiftly westward. Ten weeks elapsed between the first Central Pacific attack (Tarawa) and the second (Kwajalein). But only ten days after Kwajalein, U.S. troops landed on Eniwetok, while the Navy made its fierce raid on Truk.

The brightest week of the Pacific war was encouraging indeed in contrast to the slow, grueling battle of Italy, the long wait for the second front, the hope, deferred of airmen that Germany could still be knocked out by bombing.

But sober military men still stood firm in their predictions of a long war against Japan. Even if the Japs lost Truk (which they will not until many foot soldiers have lost their lives taking it), or if Truk were bypassed, many bases remained for Admiral Koga's Navy: Singapore, Surabaya in Java, Balikpapan in Borneo, Saipan in the Marianas, Manila and the Japanese homeland bases.

Which Way to China? Presumably, the most important goal for Admiral Spruance and his strategic boss, Chester Nimitz, next along their route across the Central Pacific is the Philippines--a long 2,700 miles west of Eniwetok. Admiral Nimitz confirmed this impression last fortnight when he said: "I believe the Japs can be defeated only from bases in China." That can hardly be done until the Philippines are regained.

Admiral Nimitz' simple statement of aim drew agreement from two other strategists who have an eye on China and the Philippines. Dour, realistic Lieut. General Joseph Stilwell promised to support Nimitz by "an aggressive Allied land and air offensive projected from the interior." But Infantryman Stilwell barbed his statement with caution that "vital China-based air operations cannot wait for penetration of the blockade by land or sea."

In Australia Douglas MacArthur, whose forces are some 350 miles nearer Manila than Nimitz' carriers, warned that sea blockade and bombardment alone could not defeat Japan. Said he: "The strongest military element of Japan is the army, which must be defeated before our success is assured. This can only be done by the use of large ground forces. . . . [Japan's] outlying islands of the Pacific represent an outpost position, important, it is true, but no longer decisive."

General or Admiral? The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who make the final decisions, probably had not decided how to get to the Philippines. But the final decision was not yet pressing: there was far to go. > Nimitz and his task forces could seize or by-pass more islands on their westward march. MacArthur could pound away at Jap pockets of resistance while his land troops went on retaking New Guinea.

Perhaps events might finally decide. With the power and flexibility the U.S. now has in the Pacific, either Nimitz or MacArthur could move to meet them.

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