In 1941-1942, the Japanese radio began to show an unwholesome interest in Christmas Island in its broadcasts to Japanese at home and abroad. Christmas Island, below Sumatra, was pointed out as a really important place, and tremendously significant in naval strategy. Subsequently the Japanese armed forces went to and took Christmas Island. The home public was delighted that this vital spot had been secured. Of course, Christmas Island was not as important as the Japanese radio said it was, but the significant thing was that the radio talked about it _ahead of time_. For what little it was worth the Japanese had given us warning. Enemy realization of an impending defeat may be preceded by disparagement of the importance of the area in which the defeat is to take place, or by description to the home audience of the enormous strength which enemy forces face at that particular place. Enemy action--when the enemy is security-minded--may be anticipated from his complete silence on something which he would normally talk about. It must have seemed odd that the Americans stopped talking about nuclear fission altogether, when prewar years had seen a certain number of news items on the subject in the New York press each month. A nation getting ready to strike _à la_ Pearl Harbor may prepare by alleging American aggression. A nation preparing to break the peace frequently gets out peace propaganda of the most blatant sort, trying to make sure that its own audience (as well as the world) will believe the real responsibility to lie in the victim whom he attacks. Hitler protested his love of Norwegian neutrality; then he hit, claiming that he was protecting it from the British. No hard-and-fast rules can be made up for all wars or all belligerents. The Germans behaved according to one pattern; the Japanese, another. For example, the German High Command sought to avoid bragging about anything they could not actually accomplish. They often struck blows without warning but they never said they would strike a blow when they knew or believed that they could not do it. The British and Americans made up a timetable of this, and were able to guess how fast the Germans thought they were going to advance in Russia. Knowing this, the British and Americans planned their propaganda to counter the German boasts; they tried to pin the Germans down to objectives they knew the Germans would not take, in order to demonstrate to the peoples of Europe that Nazi Germany had finally bitten off more than it could chew.