JAPANESE ARE LEARNING FROM NAZI MISTAKES
SEELY, Lt. Comdr. C. S.
Japanese Are Learning From Nazi Mistakes By Lt. Comdr. C. S. Seely THE Japanese almost certainly will profit by the obvious mistakes the German high command made, mainly those fatal mistakes of...
...This line is not more than 200 miles from the coast...
...The German general staff has been discredited by its actions in this war and certainly will not regain its former reputation for generations, if ever...
...The opinions and assertions expressed above are the private ones of the writer and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Navy Department or the naval service at large...
...They need all the food they can get...
...The war proved that the German military leaders were "dummkopfs" rather than expert strategists and tacticians as practically everybody believed...
...Hard fighting everywhere in the south is about at an end until October...
...They will all fall of their own weight after we establish a bridgehead on the China coast, and this, of course, we must do in any case...
...Singapore and the other important Japanese bases in Malaya, Siam, French Indo-China, and the Dutch East Indies cannot be taken this year, in my opinion...
...However, they almost certainly will withdraw to the Yangtse River before risking a major battle with our forces...
...It seems clear now that they will not fight a decisive battle south of Shanghai or west of their main defense line in China proper...
...However, determined delaying actions, like those in Burma, the Philippines, and in the South generally, must be expected...
...The Japanese cannot back up too far without surrendering too much of the rice field area...
...C. S. Seely THE Japanese almost certainly will profit by the obvious mistakes the German high command made, mainly those fatal mistakes of trying to hold territory a long way from Germany's main bases...
...The Japanese may be expected to avoid great battles—like Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Tunisia, and the Rund-sted break-through last Winter—-well outside their inner defense lines...
...Recent suggestions that the Japanese may withdraw to the north of the Yellow River before offering all-out resistance have something to commend them, but they are a bit too optimistic...
...But as matters now stand there does not seem to be any good reason why we should try very hard to take them...
...Weather is even now almost too hot there for anything much but air bombing and naval warfare...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 23
