JAPAN: In the Bucket

Chinese General Hsueh Yo said this week that Japan had 32 divisions on the Siberian border ready for a crack at Soviet Russia—if Adolf Hitler weakened Russia enough. By way of preparation for war, Japan sent three vessels to the U.S. to take its nationals back home. But even high Japanese Army officers were not too happy about the prospect. Commenting on Japan’s present predicament, Colonel Kikujiro Okada of the War Ministry said: “We cannot just die off, smothering in an iron bucket clamped over our head, and at the same time we cannot remove the bucket; therefore there is no other way but to go forward and prepare for the worst.”