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Corbach (2018) Air Strategy in Asia Poplar: Unpopular Books By Otto Corbach

Translated from the Berliner Tageblatt, Berlin National-Socialist Daily

First published: The Living Age, 1 July, 1935, pp.397-398

Republished: Corbach (2018) Air Strategy in Asia Poplar: Unpopular Books

Otto Corbach (1877-1938) was a German journalist and publicist.

This essay is in the Public Domain

I After long, painful consideration, American diplomacy has recognized the decisive importance of air armaments in the increasingly vital political decisions that are to be made in the Far East. The Japanese islands resemble a fox's lair with many entrances. Japan's dependence on imports from far-away districts overseas has decreased because imports of raw materials from nearby Asia have increased. Since the Japanese navy controls the communication lines with Asia, the United States has become deeply involved. Consider, for instance, the dependence of the American automobile industry on the rubber plantations of the Dutch East Indies. Time is obviously working on the side of Japan's defensive naval power and against the offensive naval power of the United States.

But, while naval preparations were making the Japanese island kingdom immune from American attack, military aviation was going forward at a rapid rate and exposing the nerve centres of the foremost yellow nation in the world to attack from the Asiatic continent. Almost a third of the population of the largest Japanese island is concentrated in the four thickly settled cities of Kobe, Osaka, Tokyo, and Yokohama. A successful attack by a powerful bombing squadron would incapacitate all of Japan.

In spite of old and new rivalries, England and the United States have worked out a common strategy since the Great War to 'save civilization,' which means to defend Anglo-Saxon rule throughout the world. The prime consideration has been to assure England of enough rear support in Europe to permit it to bring its full strength to bear on India and the Pacific Ocean. Then, the naval superiority that the Anglo-Saxon Powers enjoyed by reason of their dreadnaughts had to be maintained by preventing an armament race in submarines and bombing planes. For a thousand military planes cost no more than one big battleship, and, since one bomb dropped from one plane or one torpedo from one little submarine can destroy a battleship, the most powerful navy in the world becomes worthless if its freedom of movement cannot be protected from hostile submarines and bombing planes.

II

Shortly after the World War, Admiral Sims declared, “The battleship was once the backbone of the fleet, but it has ceased to be. Submarines and airplanes have begun to end its rule. Even a small 1/3