Kalama, Mickey is right. The Japanese were building round bobbin machines long before WWll. The only thing the US "gave" the Japanese in regards to sewing machines was the import rights to the US after the war. I can't tell you how many times I've argued this point to people on the internet. The early imported machines look so much like a Singer because that's what would sell, then once they had the foothold in the US they started improving their machines with top quality engineering. There's very few Singers that I would choose over my Japanese machines for quality of build and perfect stitches. It just so happens that the 301 is one of my favorite Singers.
Cari