Japan attacked the NL. East-Indies. The Dutch, in need for help, got some – but not enough – from U.S. bombers. The Allies, in the end, finally recognized its tremendous strategic importance.

The next prize that the Jap wants is the rich Netherlands East Indies. Last week while he was still fighting in Luzon and Malaya he struck at the Indies, for their supplies of oil, rubber, metals and all the other storied riches by whose possession he could tilt the economy…

The Japanese did not attack a single Netherlands outpost, but the Dutch knew there was no permanency to this, and they went straight to work,

To U.S. homebodies, the field where U.S. soldiers were giving their lives (see p. 16) seemed the most urgent. But to the Allied strategists, there was no more important battlefield than Malaya. On that battlefield Singapore was at stake. At Singapore the future of the Allies in Asia was at…