Fliers blast Japs on isle near Alaska
Nipponese vessels also seen in port in Dutch Harbor area
By Sandor S. Klein, United Press staff writer
…
Pennsylvania troops reach British Isles
More tanks, other supplies for second front cross safely
By Leo S. Disher, United Press staff writer
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Cowboys, Injuns – German-style –
Wild West tales turn Adolf Hitler into late sleeper
Author of stories never visited America; library of Führer includes books on military, art, astrological subjects
By Frederick C. Oechsner
…
Thousands see sham warfare
Army offers Blitz sample at Baltimore stadium
By John Troan, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Telephone tax boost is voted by House group
Increase also approved on telegraph toll levy, insurance firms
…
Background of news –
The Aleutians, Japan and Russia
By Editorial Research Reports
Tokyo and Berlin both claim that Japanese forces have occupied some of the Aleutian Islands west of Dutch Harbor. The U.S. Navy announced last night that Japanese had landed on Attu Island, westernmost of the Aleutian chain, and that Jap vessels have been observed in Kiska Harbor, 100 miles east of Attu.
Any Japanese attempt to maintain posts on the Aleutian Islands might be aimed, not at attacking Alaska proper or the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States, but at discouraging the Soviet Union from declaring war on Japan or at preventing the United States from sending aid to Siberia in case Japan declared war on the Soviet Union.
From Kiska, one of the westernmost Aleutians, the distance is only about 500 miles to the Russian base on the Komandorski Islands. Thence to the Russian base at Petropavlovsk, on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the distance is only about 350 miles. From Petropavlovsk, American planes either could attack the Japanese base at Paramushiro on the Kurile Islands, which almost touch Kamchatka, or could fly across the Sea of Okhotsk to the Siberian mainland.
However, Kiska lies some 700 miles from the major U.S. naval base at Dutch Harbor. If the Japanese could maintain in force positions between the two places, American communication to Siberia would be intercepted.
Of all the anomalies of the present war, none stands out more strikingly than the peace existing between Japan, fighting with Germany against the United States and Great Britain, and Russia, fighting with the United States and Great Britain against Germany. On Thursday, London announced a 20-year Anglo-Russian pact of mutual assistance, while Washington announced that full American-Russian understanding had been reached in talks between President Roosevelt and Soviet Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov on creating a second front in Europe in 1942. Yet neither announcement said anything about Russian aid against Japan.
Japan could not very well have concentrated her military and naval strength against the United States, Great Britain, and The Netherlands in the Far East without having been guaranteed that Russia would not attack Japan in the rear. And Russia, fighting for its life against the German invading armies, was obviously in no position to take on an additional antagonist in its rear. This situation obviously had more to do with the absence of hostilities between Japan and Russia so far than did the Russian-Japanese five-year non-aggression and neutrality pact signed on April 13, 1941. After all, a similar pact was in effect between Germany and Russia on June 22, 1941.
Now that Japan has occupied the Philippines, Thailand and Burma, and most of Oceania, it is in a stronger position than on December 7, 1941, to remove the Russian threat in Japan’s rear. Russian planes from Vladivostok would have to fly only 665 miles to reach Tokyo, less than 500 miles to reach other Japanese centers, but Japanese bases in Manchuria are only a few score miles from Vladivostok. Also, if Germany were to conquer Russia, German instead of Russian influence might predominate in Siberia, and Japan would have no more liking for Germany than for Russia as a neighbor. The one factor which might deter Japan now from attacking Russia in the East, if Russia is again imperiled by a German drive in the West, would be the likelihood of powerful U.S. aid to Russia via the Aleutians.
Völkischer Beobachter (June 14, 1942)
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