Ready Warning

In World War II, Tokyo painted some buildings black to confuse Allied bombardiers. Last week, in one of those buildings, the Foreign Ministry, the Japanese took note of another threat from the skies. Japanese diplomats formally asked the U.S. to prevent "foreign military planes" from crossing Japan's frontiers. In a news release, the Japanese warned "the foreign power concerned" to stay away, left no doubt that they were referring to Soviet Russia, whose planes have been flying over northern Hokkaido for months. To the fighter pilots of Major General Delmar Spivey's Japan Air Defense Force went an order: give one warning burst of fire to intruders, then shoot to kill.

Until recently Spivey did not have enough fast planes or radar to issue such an order and make it stick. But ever since the Russians shot down an American B-29 within sight of Hokkaido last fall (TIME, Oct. 20), the Air Force has been stocking Hokkaido with F-86 Sabre jets, F94 night fighters and up-to-date radar. News of any big shift of planes between Soviet bases in the Kurils or on Sakhalin, any significant change in training there--or, more important, any mass flight toward Japan--can now be flashed in seconds to Spivey's headquarters.

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