Foster, Michael "Ten Thousand Miles from Denver"

An interesting short story written and published during the waning days of American neutrality before our entry into World War 2. Tramp steamer ANTIETAM, in Southeast Asia (probably French Indo-China), takes on as passengers an out-of-luck traveling carnival company that “had been stranded somewhere upcountry by the war, and was trying to get out of the Orient in a hurry.” A subplot involves the vessel’s cargo of Boeing airplanes bound for delivery to the Australian military. While enroute to San Francisco the ship narrowly averts Japanese-sponsored sabotage. Though “off camera” for much of the story, Foster nonetheless depicts the Japanese as a treacherous people, giving voice to popular American sentiment as America moved in 1941 toward the outbreak of war in the Pacific.