Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan

by Bruce Lee

is so desperate for this material she is ready to send ten tankers to the Far East to pick up the products. Oshima reports that Ribbentrop told him: “We Germans must have just as much cocoa oil and palm oil as you can let us have. I know that you Japanese may suffer some in the process, but at all odds we must have what we have already agreed on.”52 Apparently the same point has also been made by German vice-minister Wiehl of Foreign Affairs, who is quoted as telling Oshima’s staff: “We must have edible fats for this winter and if you Japanese don’t let us have them, I do not see what we will do.… Our people will just have to go without. They will suffer in body and soul as a result. The bad effect will be extreme.… You promised us 164,000 tons some time ago … and judging from the fact that you Japanese exported a total of about 100,000 tons of coconut oil and palm oil from your occupied countries in 1937–1938, we feel justified in believing that you can accommodate us.”53 The new Japanese Foreign Minister, Tani, replies to Oshima that, yes, there have been some supply problems, but 12,000 kilo tons of palm oil will be shipped at the end of October “as stipulated.”