JAPANESE WAR LEADERS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24985, 20 September 1946, Page 7

JAPANESE WAR LEADERS

tfRIAL REOPENS IN TOKYO CASE AGAINST GENERAL TQJO (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) TOKYO, Sept. 18. Opening the Charges against General Tojo and other Japanese leaders before the war crimes tribunal, the prosecutor (Mr Frank Tavenner) said that Tojo was so confident of victory he told Germany in 1940 that he would need only part of Japan's army to invade and crush the United States. Mr Tavenner said that Germany at first condemned Japan’s invasion of China, but in 1938 condoned the Japanese conquest of Manchuria, recognising Manchukuo. Germany and Japan then agreed that Russia was their enemy, and arranged an exchange of espionage and information about Russia, but when Hitler signed the non-aggression pact with the Soviet in 1939, Japan’s leaders were terrified, and later were worried lest the advancing, conquering Germany would envelop Indo-China and Siam which Japan wanted for herself. “Therefore, to satisfy Germany, Japan informed Berlin that she was keeping the United States Fleet worried in the Pacific,” continued Mr Tavenner. “About the same time Tojo told von Ribbentrop there was no cause for concern as to fighting the United* States on land. Germany insisted that Japan should capture Singapore to weaken Britain and keep the United States preoccupied in the Pacific and also asked that she should be first to fight Russia before attacking the French, Dutch, and British colonies.

“The Japanese leaders, however, were bent on going southward and boasted that Singapore would be seized in grand style from the sea and land. Later the Japanese policy changed, and they made the fateful decision to attack Pearl Harbour.”

Mr Tavenner asserted that Lieuten-ant-General Oshima, the Japanese Ambassador to Germany, ana also Shiratori, the Ambassador to Italy, double-crossed Tokyo by advising Germany to jockey Japan into the war.