Show NEWS BEHIN ami mer by PAU PAUL L MALLON LON released by western newspaper union JAPANESE CAMPAIGN TO BE HARD AND LONG washington the sure spring boards which general macarthurs Mac Arthurs men are seizing now from which to jump into the philippines and the simultaneous quebec conference which was wreathed with victory smiles have made the front pages look like we can make short work of japan the various routine military planning announcements here are generally based on expectations of another year A few paragraphs from kun ming telling of our withdrawal from the huge central china front at Kwe ilin due to ineffective handling of the chinese troops shows the difficulties in evolved in clearing a half hemi sphere of japs without making any pretense of special information from the quebec meeting it is evident that this final victory involves what the military experts are already calling a strategic nightmare in general it looks easy in detail it will be hard the quebec meeting itself developed no news from admirals and generals who occupied the hotel rooms and the newsmen wrote nothing important but an earlier war department statement on plans for demobilization laid out a program obviously designed to move vast quantities of our troops from europe and this country into east asia this report indicated rather clearly that we in intend to do the job of defeating japan ourselves and not rely heavily on arming the chinese one negative step taken at quebec indicated also we are not planning a single overwhelming operation as in europe roosevelt and churchill said they did not consider combining the operations of mount batten in burma macarthur toward the philippines and nimitz in the central pacific under a single head Mount battens campaign has not been satisfactory to many military observers and much talk of his differences feren ces in strategic thinking with general stillwell has been heard british undertaking there are some who think Mount batten should already have have rallied a sufficient british force in india for a large scale invasion of southern china and burma saying this should primarily be a british undertaking because they have the base from which to launch and supply it such a prospective campaign have been expected from a change of commanders but nothing leaking from quebec has given it credence now macarthur is bent on conquest of the philippines which is a gigantic undertaking in itself but the japanese officials are publicly on their radio expecting a direct earlier invasion of japan itself we think commonly of macarthur and nimitz coming up from the south to take japan but there are several ways in one from our aleutian outposts in the north another from russia speculations that russia will declare war on our side immediately after germany has fallen are gaining wide publicity but the russians have only a guard force facing man chukuro which might not wish to undertake a campaign in winter I 1 also the bulk of the red army will b be nearly a third of the way around the globe in germany at the end of the european war immediately tt available even if russia joined in in would only be bases air and naval from which we might operate so the plain inner facts indicate we will have to do the job ourselves churchill with characteristic act tactual factual humor insisted britain would not be deprived of the honor of killing japs but he mentioned his fleet and air force before land troops the air force will be of f greatest benefit because the fleet is reputed to be on a I 1 to 5 ratio with us a decided departure from the old 5 to 5 days in which our popular thinking is still grooved the known facts also seem to say clearly we do not intend to go chas 1 ing japs all over east asia mac arthurs announced next jump into the philippines announced by mr roosevelt will be short but the j steps from there to the china bases i formosa and the southern jap japan aej islands will require another separate operation and should not await the conclusion of the philippine seizure |