SECRET ARMIES
62
"I
didn
t
know where
I
was,"
said the captain.
fishing for bait."
"But bait is
caught in the daytime
the officials pointed out.
"We
by
thought we might catch some at
all
other
night,"
"We
were
fishermen,"
the captain ex
plained.
when rumors
of the Japanese-Nazi pact began to
the world, the Japanese have made several
circulate throughout
attempts to get a foothold right at the entrance to the Canal on
Since 1934,
the Pacific side. They have moved heaven and earth for per
mission to establish a refrigeration plant on Taboga Island, some
twelve miles out on the Pacific Ocean and facing the Canal.
Island would make a perfect base from which to study the
waters and fortifications along the coast and the islands between
the Canal and Taboga.
Taboga
When
this
and other
efforts failed
and there was
talk of
ban
ning 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.
"Amano
seas.
Maru,"
In July, 1937, he built in Japan the
a fishing boat as ever sailed the
as luxurious
With a purring
diesel engine,
it
has the longest cruising
powerful sending and receiv
any
a permanent operator on board, and an extremely
ing radio with
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 Sep
range of
fishing vessel afloat, a
1937, word spread along the international espionage
grapevine that Nicaragua, through which the United States was
another Canal, had some sort of peculiar fortifications
tember,
planning
in the military zone at
Managua.