POSSIBLE COME-BACK

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 61, 10 September 1945, Page 5

POSSIBLE COME-BACK

MILITARISTS SAID TO BE PREPARING

NEW YORK, September 8. Though the Japanese militarists have been forced out of domestic politics at present, a report by an impartial eye-witness indicates that the clique is preparing for a possible come-back, says the "New York Times" correspondent in Tokio. The eye-witness, driving through a rural section of Japan far from occupied cities, encountered long convoys of Japanese trucks, heavily laden, covered with tarpaulins and guarded by soldiers armed to the teeth. All the truck movements were being made at night. At one point a truck stuck in a ditch and Japanese soldiers forced civilians, with slaps and cuffs, to aid in extricating it. An interpreter, greatly agitated, urged the newspaperman to lie down and several times shook his head worriedly, saying: "This is a mad situation." While the driver of the eye-witness's car, who was a Japanese police lieutenant, argued heatedly with the soldiers, one passenger, with his hand on his revolver, whispered to the interpreter to inform the driver that he would be shot first if there was any unpleasantness. Finally the truck was pushed on to the road and the convoy proceeded without incident. The interpreter sighed in relief, the passenger took his hand off the revolver, and the interpreter commented: "A very bad situation!"

• Another observer on the outskirts of the Tokio-Yokohama area came upon huge tunnels, obviously leading to important installations deep under the mountain. The observer was refused admittance, but he assumed that the tunnels led to extensive storehouses and factories.