Fortress Nippon

Japan's war lords were forced to tip their hand last week. Faced by hard military realities, they revealed one of the major strategic decisions of World War II: to cut their losses in "Greater East Asia" and withdraw into a kind of Asiatic inner fortress, there to concentrate their strength against the blows which they knew would soon fall. Thus, in effect, they confessed the bankruptcy of the imperial venture they had launched three and a half years ago at Pearl Harbor.

It was in China, neglected elder theater of the war against Japan, that the enemy's decision was disclosed to the world. There, with revitalized Chinese armies pressing after them, Japanese forces retired from advanced positions in the all-important corridor linking Central China with Indo China -- and points south. This was no mere local redisposition of troops : it meant that Japan had irrevocably written its Southeast Asia and South Seas empires off the books. Their sea lanes already cut by blockade, these areas were denied all hope of overland communications by the Jap withdrawal through Nanning (see map).

In Southeast Asia and in the great islands of Indonesia, half a million enemy troops were thus cut off. They would remain, as a giant hedgehog behind the Allied front, just as the German garrisons in Channel and Biscay ports remained after the sweep across France. They would remain for a similar purpose : to deny such ports and bases as Singapore and Saigon, Batavia and Suerabaja to the Allies. Others like them would remain in major Chinese ports, such as Canton, Amoy and Swatow.

Two Questions. Meanwhile the enemy would bolster his inner fortress, comprising Japan proper, Korea, Manchuria and North China. Two questions stood out: 1) how much of North China would Japan try to hold? and 2) how far would the enemy's altered strategy dictate revisions in Allied strategy?

The first question would be answered when the resurgent Chinese forces neared Hengyang. If the Japanese made a determined stand there, it would mean that they meant to hold the Yangtze basin with its great cities, river ports and seaports.

If they continued to fall back, it would mean that they were conceding everything south of the Yellow River. The nature of their decision might well determine whether or not the Allies would land on the China coast before they land in Japan.

Allied forces were already at the gate opening onto the "sacred soil." It was a wide gate, and Allied strategists could either keep to the right, through the islands, or develop a second lane on the left, through the Shanghai area. Both would lead to the inner fortress.

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