World Battlefronts: No. I Fifth Column

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The produce men—there was a virtual Japanese monopoly of truck gardening on Oahu—had other handy information. From the size of orders they could make a close guess at the duration of the fleet's cruises, could also figure out accurately when the fleet would be back in port again. Supervised by naval officers, this group was paid off by N.Y.K. Co. (steamship lines) and by the famed Japanese industrial trusts, Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

Last group of all in the five-layered machine was the Bund organization, of which all patriotic Nipponese were members. Its influence was political. The Bunds were organized and financed by the South Manchuria Railway Co.

Last week Honolulu was fluttering with stories of fifth-column activity. One story was that a display advertisement in a newspaper, ostensibly pushing bargain sales of silk, was actually coded instructions to spies. Another was that a Jap saloonkeeper was shot beside his shortwave transmitter during the Pearl Harbor raid. There were many others, and the average Honolulu citizen did not know which was true and which false. But he did know one thing: fed on tolerance, watered by complacency, the Jap fifth column had done its job fiendishly well—and had not yet been stamped out.