STRATEGY OF CONQUEST

Evening Star, Issue 25941, 5 November 1946, Page 7

STRATEGY OF CONQUEST

TOJO ANSWERS QUESTIONS

NEW ZEALAND NOT SET DOWN FDR INVASION

(Official N.Z. Correspondent with J.-Force.)

TOKIO, November 1. Hideki Tojo, Japan’s Premier and War Minister from 1941 to 1944, strongly denied to-day that plans for the Japanese invasion of New Zealand ever existed., Tojo, one of the 27 alleged Japanese war criminals under trial by the Far East International Military Tribunal, made this denial in answer to questions put to him by a New Zealand journalist visiting Tokio. The questions were asked because, after 10 days of evidence on Japan’-s preparations for war, nothing had been put before the tribunal to show that invasion of New Zealand was included in the Japanese plan of operations in the South Pacific. The only reference to the Japanese High Command’s intentions for New Zealand was made in detailed Allied Intelligence information read to the tribunal by the American counsel during the closing stages of the phase of the prosecution presented by the New Zealander, Brigadier IR. L. Quilliam. „ This document said that, at the time of‘Pearl Harbour,, the enemy was carrying into effect pin-pointed plans conceived months in advance and cloaked in secrecy. Until recently little had been known of the planning before the raid on Hawaii. The first concrete intimations of early enemy intentions in the Pacific had come from a captured Japanese who had worked closely with top-ranking officers of the' Japanese navy and who had access to highly-confidential documents. This Japanese had said that the High Command had concentrated on , two main operations—a successful raid on Pearl' Harbour and a completely worked out schedule ' for occupying Malaya, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines ,the Solomons, and Central Pacific islands. . NO PLUMS FOR IMMEDIATE PICKING. Neither Australia nor New Zealand had apparently been considered as immediate military objectives, he' continued. The Japanese intended simply to cut these two countries off from out-

side help

Asked either to confirm or contradict this intelligence appreciation, Tojo at first refused to say anything. Recently he has refused almost every correspondent’s request to answer questions outside the tribunal . sessions. Approached again later, through his senior Japanese counsel, Dr Ichido

Jyose, Tojo agreed, however, to consider a short questionnaire on the sub- ! ject. The only question he would answer was this: “ Did the overall Japanese plan of operation in the South Pacific include any detailed plan of offensive actions against New Zealand? ” Tojo’s reply was: “We had no intention to invade New Zealand at any time.” ,

NAVAL STAFF CHIEF’S RESPONSIBILITY.

Asked whether, if. such a plan did not exist, it was intended only to deprive Australia and New Zealand of outside assistance, Tojo replied: “In the Japanese organisation, strategy comes solely under the jurisdiction of the naval chief of staff. I cannot say anything about it,” One of the questions he refused to answer was whether the Japanese aircraft and submarines seen off the New Zealand coast in 1942 had made a preparatory reconnaissance, for an offensive landing. Another query he said he could not answer was regarding the use the Japanese intended to make of the islands north of New Zealand if their southward drive through the Solomons had not been halted in 1942.

Throughout Brigadier Quilliam’s stage of the prosecution, which has dealt with economic and military and naval preparations for war, Tojo has sat impassively at his front row bench, listening to the . evidence and occasionally making notes and turning over papers. He looks more than nis 62 years. Unlike some of the 26 other accused, he never smiles and seldom speaks, even during his meals. - The official correspondent covering the Far Eastern war criminal trials for the New Zealand Press is Captain B. L. Hewitt, of Christchurch, who is public relations officer with the New Zealand force in Japan, and was official correspondent in the Middle East and Italy during the war. >