New Handbooks About

N. Pacific Islands

EVIDENCE of the thoroughness with which the United States went to war in the Pacific is to hand in a pack age of nine books, received from the office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, Washington.

This series of handbooks covers almost every aspect of life and activity in the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands, which were under Japanese occupation and Mandate from 1914 until 1945. They were compiled and issued to the United States Forces, ready for the day when they occupied the archipelagoes, in their advance upon Japan. Equipped with all this information, the American com manders could land upon almost any one of thipusands of islands, and proceed to organise at once an orderly administra tion, taking proper cognisance of local conditions and the ways of the residents, both indigenous and Japanese.

The compilation of the books they were all issued in 1943 or 1944—must have been a heavy task. Ever since their oc cupation of the islands in 1914, the Japs were most jealous in guarding all infor mation about them; and after Japan left the League of Nations, about 1934 the islands of the Mandate became literally a closed book to the rest of the world. In spite of this, the United States officials somehow obtained the complete data about the islands, with actual statistics up to around 1939.

The archipelagoes, under American control, will again be open to Europeans; and this series of handbooks, so con veniently arranged and copiously illus trated with photographs, will be of much help to anyone interested.