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very carefully coordinated in a skillful, predetermined plan and all Japanese forces operated as a unified machine. But air superiority has been a principal factor in the enemy's success, and his grand strategical plan has been based upon the seizure of air bases and the exercise of air superiority over the theater of action. Limits to Foe's Strength Contrary to the impressions that might be derived from a casual reading of the communiques, Japanese air power is not illimitable. Wherever the enemy has struck from the Bismarck Archipelago to Burma, he has had very considerable numerical superiority in the air, yet the total number of planes he has used in all these operations probably do not number more than several thousands. The Japanese air force is not "unified": that is, the Army controls its own air force and the Navy controls its planes. It is the Navy that has conducted most of the long-range. overland bombing missions against Chinese objectives, while the Army air force is primarily concerned with the close of support of ground troops and fighter protection for those troops. The exact quantitative strength of the Japanese air arm is one of the major mysteries of the war. Pre-war estimates [?] between 3,000 and 6[?] military combat planes of all [?] It now seems likely that the correct figure is closer to the higher than the lower estimate. There are probably at least 220 operating squadrons, possible 300, with other planes in reserve. Of these planes, perhaps 300 to 500 are Army observation planes with 1,000 to 2,000 Army fighters, bombers and dive bombers. The remainder are Navy planes, perhaps 400 to 600 long-range flying boats, and some 400 to 1,000 fighters, torpedo planes, dive bombers and bombers based on the eight or nine Japanese carriers and the three auxiliary carriers, and 200 or 300 seaplanes based on seaplane tenders, cruisers, etc. Planes in Manchuria How much of this force is being used in the Southwestern Pacific is unknown. But it is probably that Japan is maintaining at least 500 planes in Manchuria, opposite the Russian forces; there are other hundreds in China and Formosa; there are certainly a considerable number in the Japanese islands, and probably four or five of the Japanese aircraft carriers are either based in the mandated islands or in Japanese home waters. Flying boats and seaplanes are probably scattered at island bases all over the Western Pacific. It is unlikely, therefore, that more than 1,500 to 3,000 Japanese planes have yet been used in the Southwestern Pacific. And these planes are almost certainly not the qualitative equal of the better American or British planes, though they are serviceable, dependable and in some cases rugged flying machines that will do their job efficiently if not spectacularly. Over Burma, and lately over Singapore, where they have met greatly outnumbered American Curtiss P-40's and British Hurricanes (both older types of American pursuits), the Japanese have been roughly handled. How Do They Do It? Their success is based on surprise; in part, the grave inadequacy (in number) of the flying forces arrayed against them; in part their victories have been due largely to air bases, shorter supply lines and better preliminary preparations. At Hawaii there were ample planes to beat off the Japanese raid had those places been put on the alert and in the air as they should have been. This was not true in the Philippines, nor has it been true of any of the other places the Japanese have attacked. Air power does not consist of planes alone. To operate one plane one day may require two tons of supplies and a ground crew of eight to thirteen men. And modern air power must have supported subsequent landings helped to control sea communications. Value of Numbers So far their attacks have been successful because their planes far outnumbered the enemy's and because the length of our sea communications, three to five times as long as the Japanese line of communications, have prevented rapid reinforcement. The air forces of the United Nations in the Far East were quite weak at the start of the war, those in Malay and Singapore particularly so. The Netherlands Indies mustered a total of perhaps 500 to 700 planes. In Burma and China there was a small fighter group totaling 1-- P-40's. AN Australia and New Zealand added Wirraways and some American Lockheeds and Catalina to the total. The grand total was certainly considerably less than the Japanese planes available, and the enemy, utilizing their control over sea communications and their extensive string of air bases, concentrated their planes at particular points of attack against widely dispersed forces of the United Nations. Lately, for instance, there have been few reports of much Japanese air activity against General Douglas MacArthur's forces in the Philippines. Having destroyed most of the American air support in Luzon, it seems likely that some of the Japanese air forces once used in the Philippines have been shifted to other areas. This is the danger of the loss of Singapore; if that should fall, the Japanese would then be free to concentrate additional air and surface strength against Java. Encouraging Signs However, the appearance of American P-40 pursuit planes in action over Java last week is one of the encouraging signs in the air war. These planes, of the same type that have been so successfully employed against the Japanese air fleets in Burma, will reinforce the old and relatively few Netherland pursuit planes, and if enough of them come Java probably can be held. But fighter planes, bombs and equipment must go by ship, and it is probably at least an eight-week job to load them, transport them across the broad Pacific, unload them, assemble them and get them to the fighting fields of the Malay barrier. Bombers can be flown to the Far East, but in limited numbers until the air routes there are improved. Our production of planes is already considerably more than double the 1,000 a month which, it is estimated, is Japan's maximum. But the production of planes is only one facet of the problem. Our job in the Far East is a quartermaster's problem, just as this whole war from the point of view of the United Nations is a quartermaster's war. If we can solve it, we can wrest air superiority from Japan, with all that that implies in modern battle. Axis Incites Tribes To Attack India By Ray Brock Special Broadcast to The New York Times Ankara, Turkey Feb.7- High in the craggy wilds of the forbidding "no man's land" of the lawless Pathan Tribes, Afghanistan's mighty Pamir Massif and the Hindu Kush, extending south-westward beyond the frontiers of Baluchistan, Key agents and gun-runners of Japan and Germany struggled last week to awaken the spark of spark of revolt and inflame the frontier hillmen to an invasion of the plains of the Punjab over Britain's bastions of defense in North-western India. Radio beams from Berlin and Tokyo, converging over Central Asia, threw glowing lures and promises upon the always restless Afridi tribesmen, pledging self-rule and fabulous treasure and hegemony in the rich Punjab to all dissident Afghans and Indians who "rise now to strike off the Anglo-Saxon yoke." Money, Arms, Pamphlets Agents provocateurs of the Axis, sent months ago from Tokyo and the former German Asiatic Gestapo headquarters at Tabriz, Iran, and reinforced by agents who fled from Iraq, Syria, and Iran ahead of the British armies, passed out money, small arms, pamphlets and promises in the tented "jugis" of the fierce nomads in the hills. In poetic meter in the picturesque written characteristics of the tribes, the Axis handbills exhorted the hillmen to join in a "jehad," or holy war, against the infidels. Listeners to the Berlin and Tokyo broadcast heard more solid promises in the Pushtu, Urdu and Brahui languages of food, riche in the Hindu Banias and beautiful Hindu maidens, all to be had for the taking by the bold invaders from the north. The Native Axis agents make the most of the ready risibilities of the childlike tribesmen, fanning their dormant Moslem belief, refreshing memories of Sir Michael O'Dwyer and the Amritsar incident-when General O'Dwyer's troops killed 1,500 Indians in the Punjab- and feeding the ego of the fabulous Fakir of Ipi, the notorious Mohammedan renegade who led the British in hide-and-seek ten years ago then vanished like an ibex into his native mountains. Not since 1908 and 1909 has the Afghan frontier country witnessed a true jehad. The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 and the Fakir of Ipi's 1931 and 1932 risings have been all but forgotten. The British Forces in the Delhi, Peshawar and other strategically important garrisons, including friendly native Pathans, Rajputs and Sikhs, are far stronger than they were ten years ago. But they are weaker than they were before last June when the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany and there became less reason to fear a Russian Penetration of Britain's precious Northwest Indian Frontier. Indian and Afghan experts in Turkey and the Near and Middle East feel no apprehension over the periodic Afridi risings into Afghanistan proper, Russian or Chinese Turkeystan or the fringes of the Punjab. The crack Indian cavalry, the tough Punjabi regulars and one or two British bombers have been sufficient to put down all such raiding operations in the past. Threat of Invansion A planned and concerted revolt and invasion, however, is another matter. No man knows the true strength of the border tribes or how many tacitly peaceful hillmen might join a "jehad" that held out promises of gold, jewels, and rupees from rich Hindu merchants and pawnbrokers and complete freedom to loot and plunder the Hindu villages of the Punjab without the eventual punitive retaliation from the British garrisons on the Northern west frontier. The wily Fakir of Ipi, with a few thousand tribesmen, after waging unrelenting guerilla warfare against the British Indian forces and munitions, including bombs, vanished like a mirage when his capture appeared almost certain ten years ago. "The Afridi," as one British Indian veteran explained to this correspondent, "is a phenomenal fighting man. he battles fanatically and cruelly, believing that if he kills an infidel and dies his soul ascends straightaway to heaven. "He can disappear like the mists. The science of cover is is second nature to him. First-Class Fighting Man "He is one of the most incredible marksmen in the world, from a plunging horse or from behind a rock in the mountains. His skill has improved, of course, with the improvement in firearms, and many an almost illiterate Pathan now possesses the latest model repeating rifles and even submachine guns- the latter of which, happily, he despises." He smiled. "Our friends, the enemy," he resumed, "have supplied him with small arms and ammunition or the wherewithal to get them. As you know, gun-running is the most profitable business in the Near and Middle Eastern world, and political
