World: Mr. Pig’s-Hair Meets the Jap

Mr. Pig’s-Hair and Mr. Turtle-Liver thought that the yellow men had come from the spirit world. Whether the yellow men were good or evil spirits, Messrs. Pig’s-Hair, Turtle-Liver and the other naked Negritos of the Andaman Islands did not yet know. The little blacks had just seen the British leave the Officers’ Club and its lovely promenade on Ross Island in Port Blair’s harbor, the weather station and the stores in Port Blair itself, and sail off to India across the Bay of Bengal.

Now yellow soldiers had come with guns, ships and planes to the Andamans. The change made very little difference to the Jarawa and the Onge on the coasts and in the jungle. They were too far gone in native malaria and imported syphilis. Whoever owned the Andamans, there would soon be no more of the little men and their little women to watch, with sick and saddened eyes, the comings & goings of the conquerors from the sick world beyond their islands.

Hopeful Forfeit. The Japanese conquest of the Andamans made a great difference to the Japanese, to Britain and to India. The British at New Delhi had to admit that it was conquest by default. The small garrison, the few colonials, civil servants and guards at the Indian penal center in Port Blair had abandoned the Andamans to the Japs. Ready for plucking were the 204 big & little Andamans and the adjoining Nicobar Islands, which curve between Burma’s central coast and the northern tip of Sumatra, locking a gateway to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

From the many harbors and airdrome sites in the Andamans, the Japs can now send ships, submarines and planes against the sea traffic of Calcutta and Madras, along India’s eastern coast. Getting supplies to the British and Chinese troops in Burma will be even more difficult and risky than it became after the Japs took lower Burma. With the conquered coast of Burma, the Andamans can become bases for the invasion of India itself, or of Ceylon.

Yet in military terms, the British withdrawal made good sense: lacking the men, ships and planes for effective defense of the Andamans, General Sir Archibald Wavell had wisely chosen to save what he had for the coming Battle of India. It was a sign that the British were done with brave but hopeless sacrifices. It was also a sign of their military weakness in India.