07 CBSAnalysisf Pearl Harbor And Manilla Attacks

We will hopefully be able to bring you direct reports from both Honolulu and Manila. To recapitulate the White House reported today Japanese air attacks on the Hawaiian Islands and Manila in the Philippines. Here in the studio with me is Major George Fielding Elliott, Colombia's military expert, who will analyze now these latest developments in the Far East, Major Elliott.

The Japanese appear to be taking the offensive in an effort to delay and impede American operations in the Far East. Apparently confronted with a situation in which there was no escape except war, the Japanese have attacked the main American naval base in Pacific at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands.

This attack is by air and can only come from aircraft carriers, since the Japanese do not have any bases close enough to the Hawaiian Islands from which to launch land-based aircraft. This is a very great risk with the Japanese to place aircraft carriers within reach of the very powerful naval patrol bombers and the long-range army bombers on the island of

Hualk. It is a risk which would only be assumed as a very desperate measure, one which may well result in the loss of the carriers that are making the attack, but may also gain for the Japanese, important time to carry out operations in the Far East because of the damage that they may inflict on the naval base and shipping in O'ahu, and thus delay the proceeding of

the United States Pacific Fleet to the Western Pacific. That is probably the Japanese object, and we don't know yet what success they've had and carrying it out. They're expecting to take heavy losses and these losses may be expected.