Buildup In Siberia

Only two miles of sea separate the top of Japan from Soviet-held territory. Across this narrow, foggy stretch of water last week came sounds of detonations strong enough to make Japanese windowpanes rattle. The sounds might be either construction blasting or artillery practice. Off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, searchlights from Russian submarines or patrol boats have been turned on the homes of the island's farmers from less than a mile offshore. Shipping between Vladivostok and Russian-occupied Sakhalin Island, which dangles like a knife over Hokkaido, is heavy.

What was going on? For obvious reasons, U.S. Intelligence would make no public estimate of the situation. But the Japanese, old hands at spying on their Far Eastern neighbors, have lately been piecing information together--from agents, from returned Japanese P.W.s, occasionally even from clues dropped at sake parties by members of Tokyo's normally close-mouthed Soviet diplomatic mission itself. Gist of this information: the U.S.S.R. has assembled a massive military striking force in Siberia, trained and equipped for offensive operations. They might well be intended for use against Japan and, possibly, Alaska. Equally important, the Russians have been patching up their industrial weakness in this area by constructing a network of tank factories, airplane and locomotive plants, shipyards, steel mills and oil refineries. The threat hung heavily on U.S. military planners, who assume that not Korea, but Japan--with the greatest industrial plant in the Orient--is Russia's real goal in the Far East.

Massing of Power. The Japanese estimate the Soviet ground strength in the Far East at 40 divisions or more. On Chinese and Soviet territory the Russians have 27 major air bases and scores of airstrips, and eleven naval bases. Distribution of major units (see map):

RUSSIAN MARITIME PROVINCE: nine divisions (some of which are airborne), scattered along the wedge of Soviet territory north of Vladivostok, with a large airbase on the Sea of Japan at Tetyukhe (200 planes, mostly fighters). Russian Far Eastern naval forces have headquarters at Vladivostok, and the Soviet Fifth and Seventh Fleets (two 8,500-ton cruisers, 20 destroyers, at least 80 submarines) are based there. Booming Vladivostok supplies these formations with clothing, frozen foods, oil, steel and shipyards.

AMUR MILITARY ZONE, headquarters at Khabarovsk: 13 divisions (at least six airborne); 200 four-engined bombers based at Nikolaevsk, near the Amur River mouth; 100 navy attack planes based at Sovetskaya Gavan. Oil is refined at Komsomolsk (founded in 1932, present pop. 250,000), which also has large navy yards. Komsomolsk's huge Amurstal mills roll steel for modern submarines, destroyers and cruisers.

SAKHALIN ISLAND (wholly Russian since 1945, when Red troops under the Yalta agreement took over the Japanese southern half): twelve divisions (six infantry, two armored, four possibly understrength airborne); headquarters of the Soviet Tenth Air Force, which probably has 800 planes on the island alone. The Russians recently completed a railroad running the full length of the island, are working day & night on concrete fortifications, hidden gun emplacements, airstrips, and armored-force maneuvering areas.

KURIL ISLANDS (also given to Russia at Yalta): two infantry divisions, one composed largely of interned Japanese soldiers, under Major General Ryuji Sejima, formerly a lieutenant colonel on the staff of Lieut. General Tomoyuki ("Tiger of Malaya") Yamashita. The Russians have also heavily reinforced the intricate underground airstrip and ground force installations on Shumushu, northernmost of the Kurils, which have 300 fighters and bombers. From the Kurils and Sakhalin, a steady stream of Red agents is pouring into Japan.

KAMCHATKA PENINSULA: nine divisions (two infantry, one marine, one paratroop, five airborne); 300 planes, naval units including a submarine flotilla at the major naval base of Petropavlovsk.

Japanese agents have also spotted the fingers of a fast-lengthening Russian rail and highway system, linking these troop dispositions and reaching toward the North Pacific shore. Partly completed: a northern trunk of the Trans-Siberian railway, from Lake Baikal eastward to the lower Amur River region. Under construction: a highway from the mid-Siberian maneuvering and training center of Yakutsk eastward toward Anadyr, near the tip of Siberia, facing Alaska; a railroad from Nikolaevsk to Kamchatka, circling the Sea of Okhotsk and making Japan's northern water flank in effect a Russian lake.

Tramping of Boots. Along these miles of roads the Japanese have heard ominous --and recent--eastward trampings of Russian military boots. Items: Is a Russian attack imminent? Neither U.S. military authorities nor the Japanese Foreign Office are ready to predict one. They know only that the capacity is there; Russia's intent they cannot judge. But, warns a Japanese observer: "Americans are convinced that the real danger from Russia is in Europe. Perhaps this is right --for the next few years. But the Russians are patient. Watch them carefully, or you may be felled in the East while you are watching the West."

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