No. I Priority

"The Japs are going to get plenty," said Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, in a press interview last week. "The tempo of the air war will be stepped up very, very much. They will be hit by carrier as well as land-based aircraft. We will give them everything we've got."

This week the Jap radio underscored the Admiral's words by announcing that a tremendous force of 900 carrier planes was attacking airfields and other installations on Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu, making 14 strikes between dawn and 2 p.m. Right along with it, Japan was catching the heaviest punches ever thrown by the B-29 Superforts (see below).

Japan was now the No.1 priority in the Allied war effort, and she was bitterly tasting what that meant even before the full overwhelming weight of the U.S. and Britain could be marshaled against her.

Worse than Germany. Lieut. General Barney Giles, new Army Air Force com- mander in the Pacific predicted more bombs for Japan's 148,000 square miles than had fallen on Germany's 215,000.

In England, Jimmy Doolittle gave up his command of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, and confidently forecast the happy day when as many as 2,000 U.S. planes would hit Japan in a single attack. Doolittle's big air force had wound up its war with 2,400 Fortresses and Liberators (the new "mediums") plus a considerable number of others in repair depots and reserve pools, and 1,200 fighters. Asked just what he expected to do in the Pacific, he answered, "I wish I knew." But it would be surprising if Bomber Doolittle and his crack operations officer, Major General Orvil Anderson, did not have plenty to do there.

The main, time-consuming Allied problem in the Pacific is building up bases and supply. It takes three cargo ships to do in the Pacific what one could do in the Atlantic. Air forces and service troops are being moved first.

Within three months there should be enough bases to accommodate all the air units that can be sent from Europe. Okinawa, four times the size of Guam, promises to be a fine base, even better than preliminary U.S. appraisals indicated. Within six months the Philippines should be in shape to take all the ground forces which can be redeployed in that time for the invasion of the Jap heartland.

How Much Can the JapsTake? By the time the invasion is ready, Allied air power should have smashed Japan's industry and transport, and she should be thoroughly shriveled by combined air and naval blockade. She might not be able or willing to keep on fighting. When a reporter asked Admiral Nimitz last week whether he believed that invasion would,, in the end, be necessary, Nimitz replied: "I don't know. I don't know how much the Japs can take. They have seen what has happened in Europe, the wreckage of Germany. They know what is in store for them. ... All I do know is that it is necessary to go through with the planning of the invasion of Japan."

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