MORE CHINESE SUCCESSES

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23968, 8 June 1943, Page 5

MORE CHINESE SUCCESSES

Ichang Said To Be Surrounded TOWNS RETAKEN NEAR YANGTSE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) ißec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 6. “The Chinese have recaptured Kungan, where more than half the enemy forces were wiped out and the remainder forced to retreat,” says a Chungking communique. “The Chinese have also recaptured an important point on the outer defences of Ichang and repulsed a Japanese thrust northwards from Suihsien, 100 miles northwest of Hankow.” A field dispatch to Chungking quoted by an agency says; “Chinese guerrillas yesterday entered Tangyang, 20 miles north-east of Ichang, which is surrounded. The Chinese have cut the Ichang-Hankow road.” Another Chinese communique says: “The Chinese who entered Itu (on the Yangtse, south of Ichang) on June 3

have been battering enemy units whose retreat is cut off. The Chinese Air Force, in co-operation with the ground forces, on June 5 attacked the Japanese on the outskirts of Itu, compelling them to flee. ‘‘Chinese units attacking an enemy position at Chaoshih, north of the Yangtse, inflicted heavy losses. They also inflicted severe casualties on Japanese reinforcements rushing to Chaoshih. ‘‘The Japanese attempted to cross the Yellow river near Shuipo, in eastern Honan, but the Chinese coun-ter-attacked, and the Japanese were forced to retreat. They suffered heavy losses. “The Chinese in south-eastern Shansi, after a battle which raged from May 27 to 31, retook Tuchuouchen, Fushui, and Lachuaishuling." Dispatches from the front report that the Japanese are abandoning large quantities of material. Many Japanese troops who are discarding their uniforms and attempting to escape disguised as Chinese are being rounded up. In addition to the enemy remnants trapped on the right bank of the Yangtse below Ichang, 4000 Japanese are resisting near Tsingshih, north of the Tungting Lake, are reported to have been chopped up into small groups which are surrounded. Their fate is sealed. Chinese troops dressed in civilian clothes infiltrated into Ichang. They destroyed large quantities of supplies and started fires which spread to warehouses, after which the city was shaken by explosions, causing utter disorder and confusion. BOMBED AREAS OF GERMANY ACCOUNT IN SWEDISH NEWSPAPER (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, June 0. An eye-witness account of bombstricken areas in Germany appears in the Stockholm newspaper “Allehanda," which does not give the witness’s name but vouches for his reliability. “Thick smoke, far different from the smoke of busy factories, now hangs over the great band of death and destruction which runs across Germany from Cologne to the Hanover district,” says the account, “and it is smoke from fires, thick and often yellow, which is sometimes almost suffocating because of the phosphorus from British incendiaries. “The blast furnaces of Germany’s great steel producing region at night no longer look the same. Many of them are closed down, and also many mines where huge dumps of coal and coke have been burning for weeks. The Royal Air Force raids have put out of action sprinkler systems at other mines where production is impossible without sprinklers. “Water rose to a depth of three feet in Dortmund's suburbs after the Royal Air Force raided the Mohne and Eder dams. Flat-bottomed boats carried on essential traffic. Tremendous explosions put blast furnaces out of action when the water reached the molten metal in them. “At least two railway tunnels caved in between Dortmund and Hagen. Great stretches of the railway were also flooded.”

Even the Nazi-controlled press in Alsace admits serious complications as a result of mass arrivals of refugees from bombed districts. The refugees terrorise local merchants and demand special treatment. They also imperil morale by asserting that German flak is ineffective and that the Rhineland cities cannot stand any longer the terror of British and American bombings, “ OBLITERATION RAIDS ” BOMBING POLICY OF R.A.F. (8.0. W.) RUGBY, June 6 The Royal Air Force Bomber Command has adopted a new bombing policy, by which round-the-clock bombing has been virtually abandoned, according to a correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” He says: “The scale of raids, rather than the number of raids, is now the primary consideration. Raids against Germany nightly may come later, when the Bomber Command is satisfied that the requisite scale for each attack be maintained. This scale may far exceed even the recent sensational 2000-ton raid on the Ruhr. “The actual obliteration of a large industrial centre in a single night is already a physical possibility, and one at which the Bomber Command is aiming, and the facilities necessary for launching such blows have been under steady development for months. The Bomber Command now aims at "obliteration” raids every time, rather than at making any “pot-boiling” attacks. Calculations of the relative effect of one mass raid and two or more raids by smaller forces reveal the immense advantages of the former.” AIRCRAFT OUTPUT IN AMERICA (Rec 7 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 6. “The total production of the aviation industry—of cargo and combat aeroplanes—during 1943 will reach a value of more than 20,000.000,000 dollars, or a quarter of the United States war budget for the year and one-seventh of the estimated national income,” says a renort by the United States office of War Information. “Two and a half million workers are now constructing aeroplanes. Almost all the plants are capable of conversion to the construction of commercial aircraft.”