Morin was in Mongolia in 1939 when the Russians defeated the Japanese in a border clash there. In December 1940, he began a one-year roving assignment through southeast Asia. In seeking to explore areas lying in the path of Japanese expansion, he visited the regions then known as the Netherlands East Indies, French Indo-China, the British colony of Singapore, and independent Thailand, as well as Shanghai and Manila. He spent six months in Java during the protracted economic negotiations between Japan and the Netherlands Indies. He was present to cover the Japanese occupations of both Thailand and French Indo-China. He was beaten by Thai soldiers,