JAPANESE PLANS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 63, 16 March 1942, Page 4

JAPANESE PLANS

INVASION OF U.S.A. POSSESSIONS i . AMERICAN JOURNALIST’S WARNINGS This is the seventh of the “Chronicle's” exclusive series of articles by .Tames R. Young, famous American newspaperman. He spent 13 years in Japan and saw how she prepared, with German instigation, for the Pacific war. He says that America knew last October that Japan planned to invade U.S. possessions; that Japan's Pacific attacks were outlined two years ago by her naval strategists. TAPA.X’S plans 1o invade AmeriJ can possessions in file Pacific were revealed in a startling private report which reached Washington on October 28, 1941. The substance of the report was that, assurer! that lhe Japanese navy would give support to plans laid by Imperial Headquarters. Japanese leaders decided in August 1941, to launch an attack on lhe United States in December. Under the leadership of Koki Hirota. one-timn Japanese Prime Minister. who took over after the military assassinations in 1936. members of the notorious secret patriotic society, the Black Dragons, met and were’ told that Jamii was ready for war. The Black Dra-ons. mostly retired .army and navy officers with a sertter,v'ffi i r *ans were informed that oy N..\er.ibf-: c< mplete mountings of guns and ammunitions will have been complex d in the Caroline Islands in the South Padfv. The navy and the air force (reor;anisec under General Kenji Doibara with the aid of Nazi General von Niessel. a former adjutant to Goring) proceeded south from where , they started their December 7 attack on the United States. Information about Japan’s southwarj moves was handed l-o the State Department and War Department in Washington on October 28. Japan's attacks in the eastern Pacific follow a pattern outlined two years ago by Japanese navy strategists. Some copies of the campaign plans, which included the zone where two American ships were sunk on December 7, 1400 miles and 700 miles Irom San Francisco, have been in the hands of United States Navy Intelligence officers for some time. The Pearl Harbour attack followed lhe demand made in Tokio by Seigo Nakano, a former neighbour of mine in Tokio, who is the leading pro-Axis political gauleiter. that Japan should resort to force bv sinking American ships if the United States did not accept Japanese terms. How Japan is confidence enough to challenge both the United States and Britain puzzles all Far Eastern experts. Janan will ho torn with misgivings. All intelligent Japanese, and those who have seen more than the horizons of their rice fields, will not accept , what is said in military communiques , as signs of victory. Japan is suffering from economic deterioration through lack of nower and raw materials. Yet she is attacking the United States, the world’s richest and most powerful nation, lhe arsenal of democracy, supremo in military, naval, and air accomplishments; and Britain as well! Not only is America able to assume the international responsibility of being the leader in a war-torn world, but she faces ’he task of becoming ffis economic, social, end political ars.-na) as wile as military. America must beat down the Japanese in her backyard, the Pacific, and their Nazi comrades in tlie Atlantic, her front yard. From the Japanese point of view, i which is typical of Tokio’s diplomatic ■ tight-rope juggling and balancing manoeuvres, the United States was 4 obliged to “negotiate" to avoid a war - in the Pacific. The Japanese do not ; realise that America did not threaten a war. The Japanese have, for the last six ■ or seven years, proclaimed that a ) war would break in the Pacific. Japan admitted her aggressions by . the fact that she sought to have America declare them legitimate in return for concessions. Any partial withdrawal by Japan in China would be only a political token. Certain Japanese leaders in Tokio ■ hoped that the United States, through ■ its nori-interventionists, would or- . brought to consider with indulgence Japanese Imperial adventures of vandalism.; that American hearts would soften to carnage, hijacking, robbery, and arrogance. The unfortunate Japanese people - are misled. The' five largely on the i hope that the Axis will win. yet they • are in Um fifth year of an undeclared war in China hungry, worried, un- . happy, uncertain, and headed for de- . feat. , Seven years ago. a Japanese ad- ; miral told mo in an interview that Japan planned a complete political i and economic hegemony of the - Pacific, excluding, he said, the Hawaiian Islands. The Japanes have relied on the diplomacy of bluff, on the fact i that they knew some American career men would believe their “peaceful assurances.” In to-morrow’s article there will i be outlined some of the diplomatic failures on the part of United States officials and an account of how the Japanese fleet moved on American petroleum.