Action & Reaction

With Allied forces holding a firm footing on Luzon, Japanese strategists, meeting in Tokyo last week, had to make up their minds on many vital questions. Should they try to hold any part of their southern conquests? Should they continue to reinforce Luzon, to drag out the delaying action, and thus buy time? Should they dispose their forces for an archipelagic war or for a continental war?

There was evidence that the top Japanese command was bent upon prolonging the war at any cost. Their dispositions on Luzon fitted such an intention: of an estimated nine divisions on the island, three were reported in the extreme south, three in the extreme north, and the balance in central reserve near Manila. This was a disposition designed to permit maximum resistance wherever General MacArthur might land--and obviously with no plan of evacuation in mind.

Far to the west, in Burma, five Japanese divisions had been destroyed, but five remained. They were all but cut off, and likely to be left for their nuisance value. In the rest of Southeast Asia were at least five more Jap divisions, plus brigades of garrison troops. The enemy was not ready to abandon Southeast Asia. In China he was busy tearing up spur lines to get ties and rails for completing the overland route to Indo-China. The only purpose of this line, if it is ever opened, would be to drag out resistance in the vast peninsula.

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