DISPUTED ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: PART II

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000300180026-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: June 1, 1956
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ynfidentlal
French were equally well served by their
military attache in Berlin; however, his
reports were ignored. The reverses
suffered by the British at the start of the
Boer War (1899) can be attributed to their
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failure to heed the reports of their mili-
tary observer in the Transvaal who, as
early as 1896, warned of Boer preparations
for war and of the weakness of British
forces in South Africa.
Disputed Islands ,?in_ the _S:outh China
Sea: Part II
PRATAS ISLAND
Pratas is a single, isolated island at
20-42N, 116-43E. A line drawn on the
map from Pratas to Hong Kong to Swatow
and back to Pratas forms a nearly equi-
lateral triangle with sides about 170
nautical miles long. About 220 nautical
miles to the northeast is the Chinese
Nationalist port and naval base at Kaoh-
siung, Taiwan.
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Pratas Reef is a great circular reef
about 13 miles in diameter, the eastern
two-thirds of which dries at low water
forming a great horseshoe. Off the open
western end of this horseshoe lies Pratas
Island, 11 miles long, mile wide, and
40 feet high at the treetops. The western
two-thirds of the island is composed of
two long, narrow arms which nearly meet
at the end and enclose a shallow lagoon
1 mile long. A maximum of two tons of
Pratas Island, looking west.
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the officers sent especially for the
maneuvers have an opportunity of seeing
the practical exercises of the troops in
camp, of observing the appearance of the
men, their arms, equipments, etc. and
at once returning to their own countries
to explain in person the result of their
observations and to corroborate,
modify, or amplify the report of the
military attaches.
At the outbreak of war extra officers
(of friendly nations) are usually sent to
the army in the field for the express pur -
pose of witnessing the campaign. Thus
in the recent war there were four Ger-
man, one American, and three Austrian
officers with the Russian Army, five
or six English officers and one Ameri-
can with the Turkish.
MILITARY OBSERVERS
The practice of attaching officers of
friendly nations to the staffs of belligerent
armies in the field appears to have origi-
nated during the renaissance of military
art which occurred in the seventeenth cen-
tury. 9 This source of information comple-
mented the collection activity of diplomatic
and attache personnel, and developed more
or less independently until the nineteenth
century. From this period on, although re-
maining a function essentially distinct
from that of the attache, attaches occasion-
ally served as observers and, conversely,
observers were frequently accorded the
title of attache. This latter practice was
probably adopted in order to afford the
observer additional prestige and diplo-
matic immunity. Although observers in
this category were technically attached to
the appropriate embassy or legation, they
were actually assigned to the staff of a
field commander and functioned independ-
ently of the diplomatic mission.
Great Britain and France sent military
and naval observers to the United States
during the Civil War. This was the first
9Cardinal Richelieu was perhaps one of the first
statesmen to employ this means of obtaining military
information.
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time that foreign powers had sent officers
to this country to learn rather than to in-
struct or assist. The foreignofficers who
had volunteered and served under General
Washington during the Revolutionary War
had been selected largely on the basis of
their value as professional soldiers, and
were members of our armed forces rather
than neutral observers. However, those
who later returned to their native country
undoubtedly submitted reports regarding
their American experiences.
In 1861 the heir apparent to the French
throne, Louis Philippe Albert d'Orleans,
Comte de Paris and his brother, the Duc
de Chartres, served as volunteers in the
Union Army "in order to gain a practical
knowledge of military affairs...." They
were for a time attached to the staff of Gen.
George B. McClellan. Later, in 1864,
France sent two army officers to General
Grant's staff as observers.
Lt. Col. Garnet J. Wolseley of the British
Army, later famous for his campaigns in
Africa, visited the Confederate- Army in
1861 where he met General Lee and
"Stonewall" Jackson, and observed some
of the early operations of the war.
The related practice of sending officers
to witness the peacetime maneuvers and
demonstrations of foreign armies appears
to have come into use as a result of the
invitational Prussian Army reviews and
maneuvers inaugurated by Frederick II
during the eighteenth century. These
maneuvers were at first attended by offi-
cers especially selected for the occasion,
and later by attaches as well.
The military successes and failures of
the latter part of the nineteenth century
amply demonstrated the utility of attaches
and observers. Although not always
heeded, their reports provided invaluable
information in times of crisis. Prussia's
success in the Austro-Prussian War of
1866 was largely due to the accuracy and
completeness of the information furnished
by her attaches and observers, and the
same thorough reporting contributed
materially to her victory over the French
4 years- later. As noted previously the
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Spratly Island, named for a British whaling captain, has given its name to the whole group in spite of its intrinsic
insignificance. The "poles" in the upper right are the trunks of palm trees which were topped sometime after 1941.
fresh water per day can be produced
from wells on the island, and the wells
become brackish if overused.
The history of Pratas Island is gen-
erally obscure. Although fishermen from
China, Taiwan, and Japan have used the
island for centuries as a place to dry
nets and fish, collect seaweed, and secure
fresh water no one permanently occupied
the island prior to the twentieth century,
and no nation laid formal claim to it.
The Japanese began mining phosphorite
rock and guano there in 1907.
In 1909 the Japanese guano collector had
a brush with investigating Chinese Govern-
ment officials and, perhaps under pres-
sure, sold out for 160,000 Canton silver
dollars. By this time about 10,000 tons of
phosphates had been mined and shipped to
Japan. The following year the Chinese
raised their flag on Pratas and the island
was placed under the administration of the
government of Kwangtung Province. In
1926 the Chinese Navy established a
weather station there which was provided
with radio communications.
Within 2 months of the beginning of the
Sino-Japanese War (7 July 1937) the Japa-
nese Navy seized Pratas Island. Twenty-
nine members of the staff were captured
and taken to Taiwan. According to reports
from survivors they were ill-fed and so
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cruelly interrogated that two died. The
survivors were set adrift in 2 demasted
fishing boats and drifted for 5 days before
reaching Swatow.and freedom.
During the latter part of World War II,
Pratas Island received some attention
from United States air and naval forces.
The Action Report of Task Group 38.5
for January 1945 reads: "During the
afternoon of 15 January, in completely
closed in weather, 8 VTN and 4 VFN
found and destroyed the (presumed) radio
and weather station on Pratas Island.
One lone OSCAR under camouflage net-
ting was burned near an apparent grass
emergency strip."
In May 1945 USS BLUEGILL recon-
noitered the island and found it deserted.
A shore party destroyed the light tower
on the eastern tip of the island, 2,000
gallons of fuel oil, and the two food and
ammunition dumps. The report of SubDiv
182 added that this was "the western-
most advance of US forces to date."
Between 2 October 1946 and 4 Febru-
ary 1947 the navy of the Republic of
China rehabilitated the weather and radio
station. At present 101 Nationalist per-
sonnel are on the island, including about
60 marine security forces. The island
is under the Maritime Affairs Depart-
ment of the navy and the garrison com-
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Southwest Island of North Danger Reef is typical of the lesser islands in the Spratlys. Nearby Northeast Island is
about the same size, treeless but brush-covered.
mander is concurrently the director of
the Pratas Island administration. The
navy provides logistic support twice a
year, in the spring and fall.
Both the Nationalists and the Com-
munists claim the island, but no Com-
munist authority has ever set foot there.
Since Pratas is over 200 miles from the
nearest other Nationalist territory and
only about 130 miles from the Communist-
held mainland, it must be considered
vulnerable to Communist attack.
THE SPRATLY ISLANDS
In the singular, Spratly (or on some
charts: "Spratley" or "Storm Island")
is a single, small islet of coral and sand
not over 8 feet high and 500 yards long
located at 8-38N, I 1 1-54E. In the plural,
the term Spratly Islands has had various
and ill-defined usage. In this article
the rather sweeping definition offered
by the Japanese in issuing their claim
to the islands, 31 March 1939, will be
used. This applied the term "Spratlys"
to all the islands within a 70,000-square-
mile area lying between 7-00 and 12-00N.
and 111-30 and 117-00E. Over half of
this area is taken up by the largely
uncharted area of scattered reefs and
shoals known as "the dangerous ground."
It is a remarkable fact that these
islands, which at least six nations have
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troubled to claim, have a total land area
of less than 1 square mile divided among
about a dozen widely scattered islands.
Like Pratas and the Paracels, the
Spratlys have been visited by native fish-
ermen for centuries, but the first formal
claim to them dates from 1864. A
British memorandum of reply to the U.S.
Ambassador in London, dated 12 October
1955, reads in part:
Two of the islets, Sprgtly and Am-
boina Cay, were visited in 1864 by
Her Majesty's ship RIFLEMAN of the
Royal Navy, and on October 25, 1877,
a license was granted by Her Majesty's
Government to a British subject and
a United States citizen to hoist the
British flag on these two islands and to
work them for guano. These rights were
renewed in 1889 by the Crown to the
Central Borneo Company. Her Maj-
esty's Government have never ac-
knowledged the various claims that
have been made since this date by
other countries. With regard to other
islands listed within this group, the
view of Her Majesty's Government had
been that, with one possible exception,
all except the two already mentioned
are reef and shoals, some of them
being listed as covered at all states of
the tide, and therefore uninhabitable
and incapable of appropriation and oc-
cupation.
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The last sentence quoted from the
British memorandum appears to reflect
some ignorance of the geography of the
area. There are actually about eight
other islands which are capable of ap-
propriation and possible occupation. Itu
Aba, in particular, was used by the
Japanese in World War II.
Southwest Cay of North Danger Reef
and Thitu Island have water wells. Nam-
yit and Loaita are probably habitable and
Northeast Cay of North Danger Reef,
Sand Cay, and West York may be mar-
ginally habitable.
According to the Communist Chinese
press, the German Government set out
to survey the islands late in the nine-
teenth century but withdrew, upon the
protest of the Chinese Government. The
same source states that in 1907 the
Chinese Government dispatched "high
military personnel to survey them and
gave permission for private bodies to
reclaim the islands." In 1930 France
made a general claim that the Spratly
Islands were a part of the French Union,
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and in 1933 the French "Journal Officiel"
recorded a series of formal claims to
individual islands which had been visited
by French naval units between 7 and 13
April 1933. The dispatch boats ASTRO-
LABE and ALERT hoisted the French
flag and buried bottles containing the
announcement of the French claims on
each of the six islands they visited:
Spratly, Aboyna, Itu Aba, Deux-Iles Group
(North Danger Reef), Loaita, and Thitu.
They found Chinese on four of the islands
apparently "living happily in the midst
of banana and coconut trees, sweet potato
fields, and turtles."
Japanese civilians, however, had been
active in the Spratlys long before this.
In November 1918 the Rasa Shima Phos-
phate Corp. sent out exploratory expedi-
tions that found deposits on several of
the islands, and in 1925 the mining of
guano and phosphate was begun. The
strange pattern of holes on Spratly Island
is believed to be the result of geological
exploration and may date from this period.
The earliest known aerial photographs
Ruins of Japanese-built facilities on the east end of Hu Aba.
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(1941) as well as recent ones show these
holes.
Small- scale operations continued on the
islands except for the depression years of
1931-36, the period during which the
French made their landings and voiced
their claims. The phosphate and guano
interests tried repeatedly to get the Japa-
nese Government to take over the islands.
Their last attempt, which coincided with
Japanese plans for expansion into South-
east Asia, was successful. In March
1939 the Japanese announced annexation
"of the seven Spratly Islands" and placed
them under the Governor General of Tai-
wan. On 20 April a spokesman of the
Japanese Imperial Navy said:
The annexation has nothing to do with
naval operations. The islands have
been included in Japanese possessions
formally only because Japanese go there
for guano. At present there is no
indication of making use of the islands
from naval viewpoints. They contain
no good harbors. That is why other
powers have not annexed them before
now (sic) and we have found no place
suitable for a seaplane base.
France protested promptly and ineffec-
tively and subsequently offered to arbi-
trate the question, which the Japanese
refused to do.
A surveying party sent by the Japanese
to the Spratlys selected Itu Aba as the
most usable of the islands. By late 1941
they had completed a substantial amount
of construction on that island including
about 40 buildings, several excavations,
three to five radio towers, two possible
pipelines, a pattern of roads, and a 441-
foot pier. Also observed at that time was
a 21- by 500-foot excavation presumably
designed for some sort of underground
storage. In 1941 and 1942 the Japanese
apparently used Itu Aba as an advanced
fuel depot as well as a weather and radio
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station. It became less important as the
war moved on to other areas, but during
the early stages it was of some value to
the Japanese in their advance into South-
east Asia. .
On 1 January 1945 the submarine USS
HOE bombarded Itu Aba and set fire to
buildings on the north end of the island.
In May, planes of the 13th Air Force
attacked the installations.
After World War II the Chinese Nation-
alists occupied the islands. They had 127
navy personnel there in 1948, probably
stationed on Itu Aba Island. They with-
drew about the same time that their
Paracels outpost was abandoned, probably
in April 1950. On 17 May of the same
year, President Quirino of the Philippines
at a press conference declared that the
Spratlys should belong to the Philippines.
This called forth a blast from the Chinese
Communists in the following strident
tones:
...this preposterous propaganda of the
Philippine Government in regard to
Chinese territory is clearly the product
of the instructions of the U.S. Govern-
ment. Philippine provocateurs and
their American backers must abandon
their adventurous scheme or else it
will of ne cess it y lead to serious
consequences.
So far as is known, since 1950 all the
Spratly Islands have been unoccupied
except by transient fishermen and pos-
sibly by occasional smugglers.
The Japanese claim having been re-
nounced by the Treaty of Peace, sover-
eignty over these little islands is now
claimed by Communist China, Nationalist
China, France, Vietnam, Great Britain,
the Philippines, and possibly by the Viet
Minh. It remains to be seen which of these
powers will be the first to attempt to
secure its claim by actual occupation.
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