JAPANESE WARSHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 April 1941, Page 5

JAPANESE WARSHIPS

PROPOSED TRANSFER TO GERMANY FOR USE AS COMMERCE RAIDERS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT’S REPORT. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S COMMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 15. Japan has agreed to lease or lend warshrips to Germany for use as commerce' raiders in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, states the Washington correspondent of the Overseas Agency. The deal, it says, is a counter to America’s decision to carry war materials to the British forces through the' Red Sea. The Japanese ships will be manned by German crews. This concession is being made by Japan in return for German pressure on Russia to sign the neutrality pact with Japan. President Roosevelt at a Press conference answered flatly “No” to a question whether he was gloomy about the British reverses in the Balkans and Libya. He added, “Do I look depressed?”

Discussing the report that Japan is leasing or lending Germany warships for use in the Pacific, Mr Roosevelt said he had seen only the newspaper reports, “which are not always reliable.”

He emphasised that neither the Rus-sian-Japanese pact .nor the Nazi successes in the Balkans would prevent the United States continuing aid to the nations resisting aggression.