So Flashman, you have had a little while to acquaint your self with the limited pleasures of Fusan, and also to talk at length with Major Fitzwilliam. You should now have a pretty good grasp of how we have got here….
Treat this as a little test of your mettle, you tell me how we managed to pull all this off in your own way, not the standard Sandhurst manual stuff…..
Ok Sir, the Flashman analysis, warts and all.
The enemy broke a lot of his strength against the islands in the New Hebrides as an attempt, I assume, to isolate Australia. While we traded punches with him there we looked for other ways to get some blows in to hurt him - using the idea of a boxing match…..
He then decided the time was right to invade India overland and massed most of his land forces to break through at Kohima and Imphal. Huge forces that may well have been unstoppable. However while he was winding up for the knockout blow we kicked him in the goolies by moving out of Ramree Island and once on the roads we found he was very weak in that vital part of the body and his forces in Burma and Thailand were weak. His naval forces were elsewhere and we were able to land on northern Sumatra and then Victoria Point. Suddenly we were crawling all over his rear areas, and his huge land forces for the invasion of India had to hit the brakes and start to head backwards….. mainly towards Paoshan. Difficult to regain balance when your eyes are streaming and your manhood has been mangled Sir. We had the benefit of more mobility, interior lines and were combating rear echelons in the main. By the time we had reached Bangkok we were regularly supplying Chiang’s forces via Chengtu by air, and the Japs had not taken Chungking so suddenly the Chinese were swarming their rear areas too.
Battered over and over again he retired on a long march and never really got the chance to stabilise.
Having held them in the New Hebrides we began to claw back up the east of New Guinea, but also we began to land small units on many of the bases in the Arafura Sea….. the advantages we have here are low stakes being gambled on locations, taken and then developed fast by there Yanks with their bulldozers. There are loads of bases still held by the enemy but they are unable to dance any tango any more……
So a land advance by our lads and commonwealth forces allow us to dip our toes in the South China Sea, and the Yanks and Aussies repeat the base seizure and development tactics to move up into the Philippines, the seizure of Puerto Princesa suddenly allowed interdiction of any Jap convoys of oil and since then things have just been more and more one sided.
So in a nutshell we hurt him and while he was still staggering around we kept hurting him some more? And we certainly hit him well below the belt…..
An interesting analysis Flashman, no doubt informed by your get the ‘boot in first and run’ methods of getting our of dangers - especially in bedrooms…..
Are you familiar with the Japanese ancient game of Go?
No Sir, more a cardsman myself……
Go is interesting, its fiendishly complex but so so simple. You occupy territory on the board, you make sure your opponent cannot support his stones, and you wait for the end to sweep most of them off the board.
