Raiders In
p. 12 · Read in the full issue
Pacific
Japanese Reports on Pending Activities
THERE has been no word of the German raiders since they landed the 496 survivors from sunken ships on Emirau Island on December 22, and fled to the northwards.
It was reported from New York on January 19 that Germans in the Par East confidently predicted that within a month the activities of German raiders in the South Pacific would at least be doubled. The German Ambassador in Tokio had called a conference there of all German naval and mercantile marine ofiicers to discuss the extension of raiders’ activities and the replenishment of supplies.
The Germans, it was understood, are pressing the Japanese to allow them a free hand in the use of Japanese ports and naval bases for refuelling and supply.
Captains of numerous neutral and allied ships en route to Shanghai from the South Pacific reported in January that they picked up extraordinary radio messages, ostensibly between German raiders and a central broadcasting sta tion secreted either in Japanese mandated territory, or close to it.
Residents of South Pacific territories should not be unduly alarmed by these reports. No details are available, of course: but it can be said that Britain is much better equipped now to deal with enemy raiders in the Pacific than she was prior to December last.