CHINESE SUCCESS

Grey River Argus, 3 June 1943, Page 5

CHINESE SUCCESS

ON THE YANGTSE Rout of Enemy Advance Forces [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Acsn.l (Rec. 10.15) CHUNGKING, June 1. To-day’s Chinese communique announced further successes on a three-hundred-mile semi-circular front extending from Tungting Lake, around Ichang, northeast of the Hupeh, nonan border region. A body of Japanese troops, including the 116th Regiment, was completely annihilated near Yuauangkwan. Enemy remnants were mopped up west of Ichang as a battle of annihilation was proceeded against retreating Japanese noflthepi Hunan, wnere Allied planes have been incessantly active. CHINESE ELATED. LONDON, June 2. The Associated Press correspondent at Chungking says: The rout ot five Japanese divisions, who were advancing as a spearhead towards the Yangtse River, is hailed here as the greatest victory of the entire ChinoJapanese war. Chinese are elated by reports that enemy divisions numbering perhaps seventy-five thousand were thrown back in disorder towards their base at Ichang. Chinese counter-attacks added thousands more Japanese casualties to a total of four thousand removed from the battlefield before May 27. Authoritative Chinese sources predict even better news in the next few days. They said the tide had turned through the brilliant execution of a well-conceived large scale campaign on both sides of the Yangtse River, particularly south of the river. General Hsuehyueh, known as “Little Tiger,” is the hero of three battles in which the Japanese failed to take Changsha. It is reported that General Hsuehyueh ordered his veteran troops on the North Hunan front “to die fighting rather than return humiliated.” He told his generals that he did not want to see them again if they returned defeated. Chinese troops who are accustomed to fighting "without air support, were heartened by the sight, of Allied planes during their operations, which they -carried, out in difficult mountain territory. JAPANESE COUNTER-ATTACK. CHUNGKING, June 2. The Japanese are reported to be using ten thousand reinforcements in Shansi Province in a counter-attack west of the Taihang mountains. The enemy, is there advancing against stifl resistance, in spite of eight hundred casualties.