Arms Across the Sky

The Japanese, with their tiny torsos and their bandy legs, have arms 1,200 miles long. For that is the length of the reach that counts—the effective reach of their bombing planes.

This fact makes a lot of difference in the Battle of the Pacific. It means that from bases which the Japanese already control they can bomb most of China, all of Burma, a quarter of India, all of The Netherlands East Indies (including the Allies' present naval headquarters, Surabaya) and a big piece of Australia (including the Allies' likeliest next naval headquarters, Darwin).

Far worse than that, this simple...

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