Word: attack
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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...Governor General, Admiral Jean Decoux, whipped out an ultimatum. He demanded on threat of immediate invasion the use of French IndoChina's chief port, Haiphong, as a naval and air base, and permission to transport Japanese equipment and troops over the French-owned Indo-Chinese Railway for an attack on South China...
...SoldOut." The people of Rumania have been bled white with taxes in the past few years to build up an Army, an Air Force and the nearest thing in the Balkans to a Maginot Line - the Carol Line. These fortifications were to bulwark Rumania against an expected attack from Hungary. When in Vienna last fortnight Germany and Italy forced Rumania to give up one-half of Transylvania and the Carol Line to Hungary (TIME, Sept. 9), the instinctive reaction of many Rumanians was that the Government had let them be robbed. It took no great efforts of the Nazi Iron...
Next task of an attack from the north is to neutralize the flanks for a southwesterly drive. Northern French Indo-China has been penetrated economically and to a large extent militarily merely by bluff, following the fall of France. By a combination of bluff and force, it appeared easy to subdue the only other important Indo-Chinese ports: Cam-ranh Bay, which is not so strong as the French had advertised, and Saigon, which is negligible. The Japanese have already softened up Thailand by an appeal to racism-and might be further bribed by the return of Siamese territory...
...problem is largely naval. Overland routes through this whole territory are utterly impassable. Formidable mountain ranges tumble down from the Himalayas. Thick jungles, swampy lowlands, torrential rivers, horrible rains, clouds of malarial mosquitoes-all make land attack out of the question. Furthermore, the problem narrows down for practical purposes to one of covering distances between naval bases (marked on the map by the flags of the nations to which they belong) and storming of a handful of coastal towns: Balikpapan, Tarakan, Batavia, Surabaya, Macassar, Singapore and a few others...
...other flank of an attack from the north lie the Philippines. The Japanese would be crazy to attack them before 1946, when promised Philippine independence would make penetration almost automatic. They have already invaded Mindanao with brigades of civilians and regiments of cheap products. A tight submarine ring might suffice to hold in the small U. S. squadron. based on Manila. East of the Philippines the Japanese already have bases in the mandated islands at Saipan, Rota, Yap, Palau...