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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 1652.PDF
AUGUST 23RD, 1945 FLIGHT The War Against By MAJOR F. A. de V. ROBERTSON, V.D. A Review of the Pacific Struggle, from Pearl Harbour to Nagasaki : Importance of Carriers NOW that Japan has been welland truly defeated the time hascome to examine the part played by air power in this unique and complicated struggle. There has never been a war like it, a war fought over ^thousands of miles of ocean dotted \v|th innumerable islands, as well as over great stretches of the continent of Asia. Strategy had to be planned on maps of the largest scale, larger even than those required by the Russo- German struggle. The movements of fleets across the Pacific were neces- sarily slow, and that fact by itself indicated that aircraft would have to play a very prominent part in the fighting. One fact may be noted at the out- set of our examination. The first blow against the United States was struck by aircraft at Pearl Harbour, and the last decisive blow was struck by air- craft with atomic bombs against Japan. In starting our review with Pearl Harbour we are neglecting the war be- tween Japan and China which had been in progress for some years before. All the world is full of admiration for the dogged resistance of the Chinese and of pity for their sufferings. But that war appeared to have reached a stalemate. Japan had failed to sub- due the Chinese, and showed no sign of ever being able to do so ; while the ill-armed forces of Chiang Kai-shek could hardly be expected to expel the large forces of the invaders from their I country. It was Pearl Harbour which ly^as the beginning of the end for the Poland of the Rising Sun. I Naval War I That treacherous blow showed the I plan which the war must take. It I must be primarily a naval war, with aircraft carriers playing the foremost part. Armies of course had to be em- ployed to overrun Indo-China, Burma, and the large islands of the East Indian Archipelago; but armies could never have come into play without the securing by the aggressors of the mastery of the seas. Naturally the first blow was struck at the American fleet, and that blow had to be de- livered by carrier-borne aircraft. The next step was inevitably to prevent interference with Japanese Plans by the Royal Navy. The Japan- ese war lords knew that for the moment the Royal Navy had more on THE START OF IT ALL : A " flash-back " showing one of the scenes at Pearl Harbour after the treacherous attack. The U.S.S. West Virginia burning furiously. its hands that its attenuated numbers could conveniently tackle.' None the less, it was very necessary for them to neutralise the threat of the great naval base of Singapore. The Japanese fleet was then very powerful—how power- ful was not known at the time. It ought to have been able to overwhelm whatever naval force the British could spare from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. But the Japanese were sufficiently clever to prefer the easy way to a possibly difficult one. Their occupation of French Indo-China made it possible for them to seize Singapore from the land side. The British had always reckoned that their THIS week, for the first time since our September 21st, 1939 issue, this page appears under a different title. On September 28th, 1939, it was headed "The War in the Air," and until last week this and the next page or two have been uninterruptedly devoted to an account of the part played by the air forces of ourselves and our Allies in the wars against Germany, Italy and Japan. Happily all three have now been fought to a victorious conclusion, and henceforth this and succeeding pages will deal with subjects of technical and civil flying interest, or with the work of the Royal Air Force and Naval Air Service on, we hope, more peaceful pursuits. We hove not relished the task of recording here week in and week out the work of destruction, but it was an essential part of the total war effort and as such had to take its regular place in the journal.—Ed. alliance with France would guard them from attack on that side. The naval forces which the Admir- alty found it could spare for the Far East were pitifully small in numbers, namely, one battleship and one battle cruiser with some of the usual lighter warships. It was a small enough force to challenge the Japanese battle fleet. Still, in the past British warships have often faced great odds with success. But, unfortunately, at the time all the too few British carriers were under- going repairs, and the little fleet despatched to Singapore was therefore without one indispensable component. Again the Japanese took the easy way, • and were quite right to do so. They had air power handy, and their oppo- nents had none. There were a few British fighters in Malaya, but not enough ; and the fleet could not, if it was to produce any effect at all, con- fine its movements to waters within reach of the Malayan airfields. So torpedo-bombers from Indo-China attacked the British ships in great numbers. Their bombs did no irre- parable damage, but their torpedoes sent both capital ships to the bottom; and in due course Singapore fell. Sea and Air It was a very bad moment for the Allies. Burma was lost, India was threatened, and even Australia was in danger of invasion. Darwin was bombed with distressing loss of life. So far, Japan had played her cards well. She had fought a naval war, but had made more use of aircraft than of warships. Her Army, on which
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