USE OF RAIDERS IN PACIFIC

Southland Times, Issue 24439, 20 May 1941, Page 5

USE OF RAIDERS IN PACIFIC

REPORT OF JAPANESE PACT WITH NAZIS

CHUNGKING, May 18.

The Chinese Army’s organ, Sao Tanopao, claims that Japan and Germany have signed a secret agreement under which Japan will provide 70 warships to Germany to be used in the Pacific as raiders, with Japanese captains operating under German Admiralty orders.

A message from Sydney says that the Minister of External Affairs (Sir Frederick Stewart) said: “Australia will not be overawed by any menace in the Pacific. We desire peace, but if there is a nation which thinks it can profit by our preoccupation with events . elsewhere, I can say that Australia is not only ready to defend herself, but able to do so.” He added that he could not accept with equanimity the reported statements by Mr Yosuke Matsuoka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, that he intended to work in very close union with Germany. The Chungking Daily News states that the Sino-Soviet authorities have reached an agreement in principle for further extension of the barter agreement which was concluded last year, under which the Chinese Government undertook to send raw materials to Russia in exchange for arms and ammunition.

The Japanese official spokesman at Shanghai, Mr Akiyama, said the Chinese Fifth Army sustained heavy losses in recent fighting in the southern Shansi province. The generals and staffs of five Chinese divisions were killed and 120,000 troops were trapped. In the city’s heaviest raid of the war more than 100 Japanese bombers attacked Utoyang. The Italian Catholic mission was hit for the second time within a week.