The Myth of Japanese

Invincibility

QUICK victories in the Pacific have enabled the Japanese, in their pro paganda, to play heavily on the theme of the invincibility of the Japan ese army.

History refutes this. It shows that the Jap is a good starter, but a poor fin isher; that he has been beaten again and again.

He made a brilliant start in the war against Russia in 1904. He won battle after battle. Like ourselves, now, the Russian Government was slow to get moving. But when it did get into its stride, and accumulated men and mater ials in the Far East, the Japanese Gov ernment secretly appealed to President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States to negotiate for peace. How’s that for an “invincible” army?

Here is another case. In 1938, during the so-called border incidents with Rus sia, Japan fought one real battle against Soviet troops. It was on the hill of Changkufeng, south-west of Vladivos tok, which the Japs claimed belonged to Manchukuo and not, as the Russians held, to Siberia. In that battle the Red Army tore the Japanese legend of invin cibility to tatters. The Japs left 3,000 men killed and wounded—and did not get the hill.

Eight months later—in July, 1939—the Japanese generals gave their Samurai spirit another test against the Russians —this time along the frontier of Man chukuo and Outer Mongolia. In seven days’ fighting, in the battle of Khalka River, they lost 5,500 men (including 2,000 killed) and 60 of their planes were shot down.

And what about the war in China— the war that was to last not more than twelve months after Japan deliberately provoked its start in 1937? It has been going on for five years. Some reports insist that the Japanese have lost over a million men—and they are as far away from total victory as they were when the fight started.

And the Philippines? Was there any sign of Japanese invincibility when Gen eral MacArthur’s men threw back numerically superior numbers of Japan ese time and time again?

Japanese invincibility, like Japanese chivalry, and Japanese Co-prosperity, is a myth. The Russians proved it, the Chinese proved it, MacArthur proved it —and the Australians proved it every time when, in Malaya, they met the Japanese on anything even approaching equal terms.

Lieutenant-General Stilwell, the Ameri can officer who now commands Chinas crack troops, said the other day; The Japs are savages. But whenever they come against anything like equal forces they’ve been licked.”

LAC Douglas Kirby, who left Fiji with the first contingent of RAF recruits, was killed recently in a flying accident over seas.

Flying-Officer John C. Lowe, who was reported “missing, believed killed”, in an RAAF casualty list issued on April 11, was one of five Australian pilots who went up to battle with an overwhelming force of Japanese when they made their first “blitz” on Rabaul on January ju.

Before he enlisted in September, 1940, he was employed in Fiji as an overseer by the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd.