STRATEGY: Naval Problem of the Orient

As Washington talked under its breath last week of the possibility that the U. S. might soon find itself at war with Japan, Admiral Harold Raynsford Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral James Richardson, Commander in Chief of the U. S. Fleet, and Secretary of Navy Frank Knox conferred in Washington. Before them was not the question of what foreign policy the U. S. should pursue, not the question of whether the U. S. should or should not fight Japan. Their duty was simply to consider the practical problem of what the U. S. Navy should do if called upon to fight Japan and what would be likely to happen in such a war.

Their conclusions, if any, were high naval secrets, but lesser Navy men and civilian experts were at work on the same problem. From the standpoint of strategy, is the time good or bad for a war with Japan? What could the Japanese and U. S. fleets do, if they were matched against each other?

Timing. If Navy men are going to be called upon to fight the Japanese (most of them, having trained for that job for years, would just as soon), they would, on the whole, like to do so sooner rather than later. One of their reasons is that, if Britain falls, the U. S. Navy’s biggest potential enemy will soon be in the Atlantic. Therefore they would, in cold-blooded terms, prefer to liquidate the fleet of their No. 2 potential enemy, Japan, before they have to face a second threat. In war undertaken in order to keep Japan out of Dutch and British possessions in the Orient, the U. S. would almost certainly have Britain as an ally, a fact which would provide additional insurance against the British Fleet’s surrender to Germany. Since Navy men can’t be sure that Britain’s tight little island may not be battered to bits in a few more months of aerial warfare, they would like to get a move on.

They have another reason for preferring a Japanese war sooner rather than later. Today the U. S. Fleet in the Pacific, in gun power and tonnage, is conservatively 15% bigger than the Japanese Navy. By the calculations of naval experts, that is a decisive margin. Within two years, however, that margin will be pared perilously thin. The U. S. and Japan both have new ships building. The U. S. building program was only recently begun. The Japanese program, begun two or three years earlier, will begin producing on a big scale very soon.

In her busy navy yards, Japan today has on the stocks eight new battleships (including four fast, superpowerful, 40-45,000-tonners), two aircraft carriers, four fast, hard-hitting, 22,000-ton battle cruisers, four light cruisers, four destroyers, nine big submarines. Four of the big (nine 16-inch guns) battleships will be commissioned in 1942; the other four, barring-accidents, in 1943. These, added to her present ten battleships, will give Japan 18 capital ships. The U. S. today has twelve capital ships in the Pacific (plus three of ancient vintage in the Atlantic). It will get two more in 1941 (the 16-inch-gunned Washington and North Carolina), will have to wait until 1943 for its next capital additions—six battleships, including two 45,000-tonners.

Scene of Action. Naval experts have long faced the fact that it is unsafe for a fleet to fight too far from its base, for unless ships can get back to their docks and repair shops, in case of damage, they are at the mercy of enemy submarines and air raiders. The naval rule of thumb for a safe operating radius for a fleet is 2,500 miles from its base. The only fleet operating base of the U. S. Navy in the Pacific is at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Only sketchy facilities for planes and light craft exist at other U. S.-owned islands. At Manila there are no adequate facilities for overhaul of cruisers and battleships.

For this reason, there has long been doubt that the U. S. Navy could ever force a decisive battle with the Japanese except in areas where it would be at serious disadvantage. For normally the Japanese, knowing the inferior weight of their fleet, would be careful to keep out of mid-Pacific, to fight only close to its own protected bases, where it would have the advantage.

In 1940, this long-accepted situation has been modified by events. War, if it comes, would now probably be set off by a Japanese attack on the Indies. This would move the scene of action some distance from Japanese as well as from U. S. bases. Such an attack would give the U. S. Britain and The Netherlands as allies, and provide the U. S. with the use of other bases—particularly the first-class British base at Singapore, secondarily the Dutch bases at Surabaya and Amboina, and the Australian base at Port Darwin.

Most logical spot for launching a Japanese drive to the south would be Japan’s advance base at Formosa. Most likely main objective would be the island of Borneo, which has the oil supplies that Japan needs. Lightly held by Britain and The Netherlands, Borneo might seem easy to take. But between Formosa and Borneo lie 1,500 miles of water, over which Japan would have to stretch her supply line. Flanking the line are the great British fortress of Singapore, the lesser station at Hong Kong, the U. S. base at Cavite (Manila). Just beyond Borneo’s southern tip lies the Dutch base at Surabaya.

British, Dutch and U. S. air and naval forces now in the Far East would be no match for the full power of the Japanese Fleet, but they would have more than a nuisance value. Based principally at Singapore, Britain has two cruisers, six to eight submarines, a considerable air force which can be reinforced by flights from Burma. At the Dutch bases are five cruisers, eight destroyers, 18 submarines and about 100 long-range bombers (some of them U. S.-made Martins). In the Far East the U. S. has two cruisers, 13 destroyers, twelve submarines besides patrol and bombing planes. Against an attenuated Japanese supply line they could play particular hell. To prevent this, Japan would probably be forced to give her cargo craft the support of her fleet, with the danger that the U. S. Fleet might cut it off from home.

Japan’s alternative would be a tough one, too—to reduce the flanking bases, while her aircraft, operating from Yap, Palau and other bases in the mandated islands, went to work on Amboina and Surabaya. In 1914, Tsingtao, garrisoned by about 6,000 German troops and wide open to attack, held out against the Japanese and British for more than two months. Better munitioned and better located (on an island) than Tsingtao, Hong Kong is garrisoned by 12,000 crack British troops. Once having silenced Hong Kong, Surabaya and Amboina, the Japanese Fleet might swing around the east side of Borneo—trusting to distance and superior force to keep off the British from Singapore—and force a Borneo landing, would even then have only a fair start to conquest of the Indies. And if the U. S. took a hand the Japanese would also have to take the U. S. base at Cavite, reduce its island fortress at Corregidor, knock out 11,000 U. S. Regulars and 20,000 soldiers of General Douglas MacArthur’s new native army.

Meanwhile, the U. S. Fleet, now based at Pearl Harbor, would have a chance to act. Convoying tankers, tenders, cargo and repair ships, it could head west to the Orient. Once out of Pearl Harbor the Navy would have to rely on its floating shops and tenders, until it got within range of Singapore. This would involve some risks, but they are risks that most Navy men consider worth while, for under such circumstances they count on winning any major engagement in the neighborhood of the Philippines.

The U. S. Navy apparently thinks largely in terms of meeting and beating the main Japanese Fleet at sea. If, when war was once started, the Japanese Fleet elected to play safe and stick close to home—as the Italian Fleet has done in the Mediterranean—no such action might take place.

In that event, light vessels of the British, Dutch and U. S. forces operating from the Indies, Singapore, Manila, Guam, etc., would doubtless begin a blockade of Japan. All her seaborne commerce could probably be destroyed except that with China, Manchukuo and Korea. Even that could be harried by submarines. Weakened as she is by her three-year-old war in China, and dependent on supplies and markets overseas, her eventual defeat would be likely. At worst she might hold out until it became necessary to withdraw the U. S. Fleet to the Atlantic. If she then took the Indies, the U. S. would probably be no worse off than if Japan were allowed to seize the Indies now.

All these things are only the probabilities in terms of which some naval men think. Only one thing is certain about any war-to-come: it almost never takes the course which men (including experts) expect.