Many Happy Returns

Eighteen years, three months and seven days before Pearl Harbor, Japan experienced an earthquake and fires that took 90-odd thousand lives and left disease smoldering in their wake. Some $11,000,000 in cash and many a shipload of relief materials from a sympathetic U.S., commented Herbert H. Gowen in his An Outline History of Japan, "are things no Japanese is ever likely to forget." Japan did not forget. Said a War Department communique last week:

"Several of the specially built barges which the Japanese used in attempting landings on the west coast of Bataan have been captured. In them were life-saving and other equipment marked 'United States Army Transport Merritt.' This equipment was part of the relief supplies given to Japan by the United States after the disastrous earthquake and fire . . . in 1923.

"In this connection it is interesting to note that these supplies were loaded on the Army transport Merritt in Manila for shipment to Japan under the direction of Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, then commander of the Philippine Scouts Brigade.

"There is nothing to report from other areas."

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