RUSSIA AND JAPAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 64, 17 March 1942, Page 5

RUSSIA AND JAPAN

SOVIET PREPARATIONS I THREE MILLION MEN FACE MAACHUKUO By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Recd. 11.50 p.m.) Lonodn, March 16. Russia is perfecting her Ear Eastern defences, some details of which are being allowed to leak out to coincide with the arrival of the new Japanese Ambassador, Sato, says the Stockholm correspondent of tne Daily Mail. Tatekawa’s replacement is interpreted as indicating a swiftly-changing Tokio policy toward Moscow. The Kremlin is taking no chances of Sato “doing a I Kurusu” on Russia. Russia is taking no risk of a repetition of Pearl Harj bour. Battle orders which can be brought into instant operation were I issued at Vladivostock and also at the j Nikolaevsk naval base, opposite Sakhalin Island. The coast between ■ Vladivostock and Nokolaevsk has been ; mined. The police are rounding up a widespread espionage ring in the Far East. Anti-aircraft defences have been strengthened and aerodromes and fighter squadrons have been multiplied. Frequent reconnaissances are being made over the Gulf of Tartary. These revealed hundreds of Japanese fishermen within Russian territorial waters. The political situation between RusI sia and Japan is causing the Kremlin : some concern, because it is realised ■ that it resembles the situation bej tween Russia and Germany before ■ Germany invaded Russia. The Swedish press during the week-end stated that the Japanese Army in Manchukuo was raised to moie than 1,000,000 men, which is treble the total of 1940. Russian authorities at Stockholm laugh at the suggestion that even a million men constitute a serious menace to the independent Far Eastern Russian Army, which normally totals 1,500,J 000. * Military quarters believe the I Russian forces are now nearer 3,000,000 front-line troops, with huge reI serves being trained. No troops and ; aircraft were transferred from the ! east. The commander-in-chief a', j Kharbarovsk is General Gregory J Stern. The whole army is manning I the Russian-Manchukuoan frontier. I It is stronger and better equipped ' than in the days of its creator, MarI ;hal Blucher, who is reported to be i at present training a central Asiatic I Army. i Stalin ordered the formation of a ' huge Far Eastern force comparable to the armies facing Germany, the manpower being drawn from the great new industrial towns eastward of the Urals. Far Eastern munitions are drawn from towns e .stward of the Urals and are independent of the west front. I Thousands of Russians are labouring night and day trebling the transSiberian railway track to carry war * materials to the Far East, and this ! line parallels the Amur River fron- ' tffr. The Russians are concentrating lon a second trans-Siberian railway i running northwards from Amur to Konosomolsk on the Amur and southwards to Nikolaevsk. Fleets of fast fiat-bottomed motor-torpedo-boats are making their ap- * pearance in the shallow islands i studded on the Amur. The construction of a chain of aerodromes linking ’ the Kamchatka Peninsula with Alaska ■ via the Aleutians is proceeding I rapidly, and the Russians expect the I early delivery of American planes via I this route. I Another source of Japanese anxiety *is the Russian improvement of com- ; munications between the war indusj tries eastward of the Urals and j Urumchi in Sinkiang, and also Lan- ; choo and Chungking, which are pos- ' sibly valuable supplementing routes I for the transport of supplies to China.