PORTENTS SEEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1943, Page 4

PORTENTS SEEN

OF IMPORTANT MOVE BY JAPAN ACCORDING TO CHINESE SPOKESMAN. POSSIBILITIES DISCUSSED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright! (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) CHUNGKING, May 6. “There are strong indications that Japan is preparing to make an important move,” declared a Chinese Army spokesman. “Such possibilities as an attack against India, thrusts against Australia or Siberia cannot be ruled out, but it is believed that China is the most likely field of activity. The enemy would probably strive to destroy China’s resistance by mopping-up operations in one area after another.”

The spokesman said recent conferences of high-ranking generals in Tokio and the visit to Manila of the Japanese Premier (General Togo) almost certainly foreshadowed a new stroke.

General Togo, in a speech in Manila, said the Japanese were ready to strike a coup de grace at 1 the enemy and added: “The British and Americans will be so crushed that they will no longer be able to intervene in East Asia affairs.”

The United Press correspondent in Chungking says that, according to reports from Nanking, additional Chinese puppet troops have been sent to the South Seas war zone to join Japanese garrisons, or for front line service, following on the Nanking Government’s declaration of war against Britain and America. It is a traditional Japanese policy to shift puppet troops from their home sectors to distant regions. The Japanese, however, are not sure of these troops. They hold relatives as virtual hostages and arrest and execute them in cases of desertion. A recent traveller from Shanghai said the puppet troops would join General Chiang Kai-shek at the first opportunity. The Japanese, realising this, give the puppet soldiers only one rifle and a little ammunition to every five men and use them mostly on labouring work in the Pacific islands.