World Battlefronts: More Islands for the Japs

“Mare Nostrum” is what the unoriginal Japanese broadcasters call the Arafura Sea, which separates Australia’s north coast from the western half of New Guinea. This Jap-claimed sea, nearly 4,000 miles south of Tokyo, is half the size of the Gulf of Mexico, is dotted with some 200 small islands divided into three archipelagos. Last week Tokyo Radio claimed that Japanese troops had occupied some more of these islands. There was no one to dispute the claim. The Japanese had been inching into outposts of The Netherlands East Indies ever since they seized Timor last February. They have been unmolested except for occasional bombing raids, usually by outmoded Australian Lockheed Hudsons. Last week’s inch put them within 300 miles of Darwin.