Those “Mystery Ships”

are Just Fishing

According to an islands resident recently back from Japan, the “mysterious Japanese vessels” that are so frequently head lined in the press are not mysteri ous at all.

In the Marunouchi Building in Tokio, he says, is the Japan head quarters of the United States Tuna Research Foundation, whose object is to follow very closely the latest techniques in tuna fishing and make them available to American fisher men—and fishermen anywhere else in the world who care to avail them selves of the services offering.

On the chart in the Tuna Founda tion’s office is marked the daily posi tion of every licensed Japanese tuna boat as reported by radio. There is no mystery—but there is a great deal of fishing activity—and if any one sights “mysterious” vessels and is really interested in knowing their identity, a reply-paid telegram to the Foundation will more than probably supply the answer —if they are Jap tuna boats.

There are some poachers, mainly from Okinawa, which the Founda tion. or the Japanese Government, cannot keep track of from day to day, but a vast majority of vessels

are working within the law and notifying their correct positions regularly.

Groups of vessels generally com municate by radio telephony or telegraph on frequencies not normally monitored by South Pacific coastal radio stations, so their presence in the area is not always known. But there is nothing mysterious about their communications—for anyone who can understand Japanese or the Japanese form of the Morse Code.

The vessels are there, in nnmbe just over the horizon, engaged the tough, routine job, of fishi for a homeland desperately shi of food. There is plenty of roa and fish, out there for anyone e; who cares to try his hand at it

Jps.

* Continuous heavy rains in Man were having a serious adverse effi on the Western Samoa cocoa cn with very little new-season coc coming forward.