make a perfect
base from which to study the waters and fortifications along the coast
and the islands between the Canal and Taboga.

When this and other efforts failed and there was talk of banning alien
fishing in Panamanian waters, Yoshitaro Amano, who runs a store in
Panama and has far flung interests all along the Pacific coasts of
Central and South America, organized the Amano Fisheries, Ltd. In
July, 1937, he built in Japan the "Amano Maru," as luxurious a fishing
boat as ever sailed the seas. With a purring diesel engine, it has the
longest cruising range of any fishing vessel afloat, a powerful
sending and receiving radio with a permanent operator on board, and an
extremely secret Japanese invention enabling it to detect and locate
mines.

Like all other Japanese in the Canal Zone area, Amano, rated a
millionaire in Chile, goes in for a little photography. In September,
1937, word spread along the international espionage grapevine that
Nicaragua, through which the United States was planning another Canal,
had some sort of peculiar fortifications in the military zone at
Managua.

Shortly thereafter the Japanese millionaire appeared at Managua with
his expensive camera and headed straight for the military zone. Thirty
minutes after he arrived (8:00 A.M. of October 7, 1937), he was in a
Nicaraguan jail charged with suspected espionage and with taking
pictures in prohibited areas.

I mention this incident because the luxurious boat was registered
under the Panamanian flag and immediately began a series of actions so
peculiar that the Republic of Panama canceled the Panamanian registry.
The "Amano" promptly left for Puntarenas, Costa Rica, north of the
Canal, which has a harbor big enough to take care of almost all the
fleets in the world. Many of the Japanese ships went there, sounding
lines and all, when alien fishing was prohibited in Panamanian waters.
Today the "Amano Maru" is a mystery ship haunting Puntarenas and the
waters between Costa Rica and Panama and occasionally vanishing out to
sea with her wireless crackling constantly.

Some seventy fishing vessels operating out of San Diego, California,
fly the American flag. San Diego is of great importance to a potential
enemy because it is a naval as well as an air base. Of these seventy
vessels flying the American flag, ten are either partially or entirely
manned by Japanese.

Let me illustrate how boats fly the American flag:

On March 9, 1937, t