JAPANESE PLANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1942, Page 4

JAPANESE PLANS

PREPARATIONS FOR ATTACK ON RUSSIA NOTED IN LONDON BUT ATTACK MAY NOT YET BE IMMINENT. OUTLOOK IN CHINA & BURIVIA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, July 1. After a period of comparative inactivity in the Far East, the present situation, as seen in London, is as follows: There is definite knowledge in well-informed quarters that a general drift of the Japanese land and air forces is taking place towards the northern frontier of Manchuria and "here can be little doubt that the Japanese are making every preparation to fall upon Russia, without warning, at their own chosen moment. This does not necessarily mean that preparations are yet completed or than an attack is imminent. In China no major operations appear to be going on. The Japanese efforts seem to be directed to getting possession of the Chekiang area, from which air attacks might be made on Japan. It is thought that the moral effects of the American raid on Tokio were very great and have affected the whole Japanese strategy. On the Burmese frontier practically nothing is happening. The Chindwin Valley, which is the last area reported to be occupied by the Japanese, is perhaps the most malarious place in the world at this season and the weather as a whole is most unfavourable for operations. In Madagascar no operations have been going on.

ATTEMPT TO LINK HP

VIEW OF SIR B. STEVENS. (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Sir Bertram Stevens, Australian representative on the Eastern Supply Council, has returned here from India and from a visit to America. He said there was little doubt that *a Japanese attack on India would come soon. Should Japan conquer India. he added, she would control more than a billion Asiatics, with whose labour she would set out to conquer the world. In his view Germany and Japan intended, if possible, to link up with one another this year. The junc-. tion might be through Russia, India or the Middle East.