Jumping-Off Place

Into the Indo-Chinese port of Saigon poured fresh, fighting-fit Japanese troops.

Trucks full of them rolled out toward the interior--and Thailand. Day after day the troops debarked and marched: 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 soldiers. They were not occupation troops. They were picked troops for fighting.

Behind them rumbled the machinery of war. Trucks shuttled back & forth between the docks and the encampments beyond the city. Aboard the trucks were munitions boxes, crated bombs, drums of gasoline, guns. Sweating Japanese labor battalions camped along the docks; they worked until their tongues hung out, then slept in relays in the tents. The harbor was filled with transports, freighters, motor boats, sampans, half a hundred warships. Fighter planes droned overhead.

Nobody supposed that the Japanese had moved into French Indo-China to make themselves comfortable. The Japanese made no effort to persuade anybody to think so. As Britain's dominions followed the U.S. and Britain in freezing Japanese assets, Japan's Premier, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, spoke grimly of the need for "swift and determined execution" of Japan's national policy. Japan's aims: 1) "to secure the safety of the country"; 2) "to obtain self-sufficiency in various resources"; 3) "to establish a Greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere." French Indo-China was only a jumping-off place for the achievement of these aims. To the National General Mobilization Commission the Premier submitted four decrees for the establishment of "a new structure for total war."

Face & Front. Though censorship obscured the details, correspondents could cable from Tokyo that "military preparations proceeded at such a pace, and on so great a scale, it was obvious that the nation was getting set for any emergency." Newspapers and officials warned that Japan was determined to force her way through the British-U.S. "blockade" by force if necessary. As a measure of Japanese determination, all ship sailings to the U.S. were canceled this week--leaving 600 Americans, warned to leave ten months ago, now unable to get out.

The U.S. "blockade" of Japan was not a blockade by any means, but to show that it meant business the U.S. followed its freezing order with a ban on the export (except to the Western Hemisphere, the British Empire, and the unoccupied territories of other countries resisting aggression) of aviation gasoline, motor fuel, certain other petroleum products (but not necessarily crude oil or heavy fuel oil).

In the week since the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China was announced, tension between Japan and the Far Eastern Democratic Front (the U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands Indies, China) had grown to the point where almost any new move might bring war. But the Democratic Front was not losing either its head or its face. When Japanese planes dropped bombs close to the U.S. gunboat Tutuila off Chungking, damaging its stern, the U.S. held its temper until plump Ambassador Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura had trotted around to the State Department to apologize and offer to pay for the damages (see p. 10).

Next Move? If Japan was still unready to undertake war with Russia by attacking Siberia, and wished to avoid the war with Britain and the U.S. that would follow an attack on Singapore or the Indies, her most likely next move would seem to be on Thailand. Under pressure, the Government of Premier Luang Pitul Songgram granted Japan a 10,000,000-baht ($3,600,000) loan, recognized Manchukuo as a token of friendship. (It was carefully explained that the recognition of Manchukuo had been chosen as a lesser evil than recognizing Puppet Wang Ching-wei at Nanking.) Japan continued pressing demands--demands which, if accepted, could end only in the capitulation of Thailand.

Strong Man Luang Pitul (pronounced Peboon), frequently accused of being pro-Japanese, has as frequently protested that he was merely pro-Siamese. At times he has been likened to Mussolini, Napoleon, Oliver Cromwell and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Even if he had all the strongest qualities of all these men, Premier Luang Pitul would have been in a tough spot this week, for his decision whether to yield to Japan must rest on his judgment as to whether Japan and Germany or Britain and the U.S. will finally win World War II.

Even if Premier Luang Pitul does yield, Japan may have a fight on her hands. If Japan occupies Thailand's Isthmus of Kra (on the Malay Peninsula) the Japanese will have bases from which they could easily attack Singapore. And they might, from Thailand, be able to close the Burma Road into China. It remained to be seen how much aggression in these quarters the British would stand for. Last week the 30,600-ton battleship Warspite was reported sighted in the Gulf of Siam.

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