The Kurile Islands Steppingstones to Tokyo

The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. In the mounting theory of world conflict, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greater sea.

The drama of the people whose destiny is to speak in the Pacific War. Here is another public service, the tale of the war in the Pacific, and its meaning to us and to the generations to come.

The Kuril Island stepping stones to Tokyo. The goods of northernmost Kuril islands be taken. The Japanese would lose strategic advantage in the North.

Or here the Japanese control the northeastern approaches to Japan. And should they lose the northernmost Kuril, they would probably be deprived of the rest of the chain and be compelled to withdraw to Japan's copper.

The kurils are Japan's first line of defense. We are speaking of us the kurils, as men have talked of us for endless years. The kurils stretch 750 miles north eastward from Japan to the great peninsula of Campchakkah, a chain of islands, mountain peaks jutting out of the sea.

On Palama Shiro, the Japanese have built a powerful wireless station and an air base, and a naval base. Yes, all these. a great weather observatory. The nation that controls the weather observation holds the advantage in this fall-on re-ed. For around us here, the weather is made. North-wet, we are washed by the cold, cordial currents. And on the southeast, we are washed by the Japanese current.

We stand like sentinels shrouded in fog most of the years. Corials! Corials! Russian gave us this name, Kurils, Smoking Island. The Russians came from the north from Tamchatka. They came in expeditions moving southward. The Japanese moved northward.