Southwards Thrust
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Of Japan
T’HE activity and aggressiveness of * Japan, in thrusting southwards through the Pacific, show no diminution, despite her preoccupation in China.
The Dutch are receiving the brunt of it, and are taking measures accordingly.
They have refused Japan’s requests for much increased immigration and trading facilities; and now they are putting in new defences all over the East Indies —a larger fleet, a larger air-force, a defence base at Amboina (Moluccas), and an army of 200,000 based on compulsory service.
On October 3, the Dutch sloop Flores fired two warning shots at a Japanese fishing sampan that was escaping out of territorial waters near Sumatra; ar*d, when it would not stop, fired a third shot which killed two Japanese, wounded two, and made the rest surrender.
Latest is that Japan is planning to obtain right in the Portuguese half of the Timor island. The Dutch, who own the other half of the island, and the Australians at Darwin, only 500 miles away, dislike the proposal.
Major-General Berenshot, head of the Netherlands Indies general staff, now in Holland, said, on October 4, that large orders had been placed for aeroplanes, anti-aircraft guns, machine-guns and armoured cars for the East Indies. These included 40 Glen-Martin (American) bombers.