The Way to Win a War

Last week brought news of the only kind of thinking and action which can beat the Japanese.

Action in the Marshalls. The yellow Pacific moon saw what the Jap had never thought to see. Spaced along a 200-mile ocean front, from the Marshall to the Gilbert Islands, was an assault force of U.S. cruisers, destroyers and aircraft carriers, led by a blue-water sailor and naval flyer, Vice Admiral William Frederick Halsey Jr. (see cut, p. 23). They were ready to strike the Jap in his stolen strongholds--2,300 miles from Pearl Harbor, but nearest of all his bastions to Hawaii and the U.S.

Scout bombers delivered the first blows at the Jap's main airdromes; torpedo planes followed them into his chief anchorages. Surface ships moved in on likely shore targets. From a Jap airdrome five bombers managed to take off, head for a carrier. A U.S. fighter set a Jap's engine afire.

The pilot pointed his failing plane at the carrier's deck, glided in for a crash landing. Men on the deck could see the bomber's crew, see that all but the pilot were dead. A gunner sent a burst into the bomber. It fell away, clipped one of the carrier planes, crashed into the sea.

Two pilots from the carrier took on twelve Jap fighters. One of the pilots, a tall and curlyheaded Texan, shot down two Japs. His companion got another, collided with and destroyed a second, then returned safely to the carrier in his damaged plane.

A bomb fragment clipped a gunner in the back of his head, apparently knocked him out. The other gunners started toward him. "Get back to that gun, you bastards!" he shouted. They got back, fast.

Carrier planes flew through a violent storm--some 50 feet above the water, some 12,000 feet in the air, to escape rain and clouds. They found a minor outpost, bombed and strafed what little there was. Most of the eleven U.S. planes lost in the whole assault went down in this storm.

The Pearl Harbor score was not quite evened, but in four hours of Feb. 1 (Jan. 31, on the U.S. side of the international date line), the Jap's main bases in the mid-Pacific were sorely smashed. His aircraft and shipping losses were high: One light cruiser; one converted aircraft carrier; one destroyer; two submarines; three fleet oil tankers; two naval auxiliaries; 38 airplanes. In addition, the U.S. attackers damaged "and perhaps destroyed" an ancient cruiser, three submarines, four auxiliary vessels.

Exactly what were the Japanese Navy's total losses to date was almost as obscure as what it had when it started the war. Best estimate: one of twelve battleships; one of (at most) 13 aircraft carriers; seven of 46 light and heavy cruisers; 14 of 126 destroyers; 13 of 70 submarines. Many more had been damaged, put temporarily out of action. Added to Jap losses in commercial tonnage they constituted a substantial blow at Japan's total sea strength.

Action East. A U.S. destroyer heeled into harbor at Wellington, N.Z., boiled to its anchorage at 23 knots (15 knots above the harbor speed limit). Aboard was the Christian Science Monitor's mild, sandy-haired Correspondent Joseph C. Harsch, who wrote:

"The Battle of the Supply Line from America's factories to the far Pacific battlefront has been won. . . . During the long silent weeks since Pearl Harbor . . . lines of communication vital to ultimate success have been nailed down hard with reinforcements and ceaseless naval patrols and hard jabs at enemy points of attack."

After a 4,125-mile voyage by aircraft carrier and destroyer from Honolulu to New Zealand, Joe Harsch had more steam up than the Navy had in Washington. Armchair admirals knew too well that the supplies had to be produced, flown and convoyed over the line to New Zealand, Australia and the imperiled Indies. But Navy censors had let Correspondent Harsch indicate that strong forces will meet the Jap when he tries to break the U.S. transpacific chain through Palmyra, Canton and Samoa to Wellington. Between Samoa and South America are the French Marquesas, which must be kept out of Axis hands.

Action over Java. Deep in Indies jungles, on hidden airdromes, grimy men in the uniform of the U.S. Army Air Forces last week nursed a few U.S. Flying Fortresses, a few U.S. fighters. Almost nightly they shifted their bases, to fool the Japanese. U.S. naval pilots, in twin-engined PBYs, patrolled, bombed and fought off the Japanese. CBS Correspondent Cecil Brown met some of them, broadcast their story from Australia:

P:"A Texas boy in command of a Flying Fortress, bombing Japanese transports, was attacked by 30 Japanese fighters and shot down six of them. The Fortress had 1,200 bullet holes in it, two [of four] motors were shot out, but he brought that Fortress back to home base. . . .

P:"A young Navy pilot in a PBY patrol bomber was attacked by 20 Japanese Zero fighters. His gunner shot down three and then he came down on the water, afire from cockpit to tail. Three of the crew swam 25 miles in 30 hours and then wandered for eight days before they reached safety. . . .

P:"This is a war, they told me, wherein heavy, fast bombers are needed, protected by fast fighters with a great many guns, and they all said: speed is what counts, speed in getting them out here. . . . These courageous American pilots and the Dutch are screaming for more aircraft, better aircraft, and a chance to meet the Japanese on terms approaching equality."

Action in the Strait. Other aftermath news last week told details of the ripping of a great Japanese convoy in the Strait of Macassar (TIME, Feb. 2). At dusk on the first day (Jan. 23), four U.S. destroyers spotted a Japanese cruiser and five destroyers. Between the Jap warships and the coast was a covey of transports. The destroyers spurted straight at the Jap naval line, broke through, turned northward and sped, still firing, between the troopships and the southbound Jap warships. The warships turned full about, chased the U.S. flotilla. Hidden by nightfall and rain, the U.S. destroyers suddenly whirled and ran southward past the unsuspecting Japs, who chased on northward. The destroyers rushed back upon the undefended transports, shelled them, then retired before the deluded Jap warships knew what had happened.

Admiral Thomas Charles Hart, in his order sending the little Asiatic Fleet into the Strait, could have written no fitter farewell to his command (see p. 23). His battle order: Submarines and surface ships will attack the enemy, and no vessel will leave the scene of action until it is sunk or all its ammunition exhausted.

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