EACH SIDE SUFFERS THOUSANDS OF CASUALTIES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 8, 2 October 1937, Page 5

EACH SIDE SUFFERS THOUSANDS OF CASUALTIES

Japanese Gain Little Ground in Fierce Fighting (Received 2, 1.0 p.m.) « SHANGHAI, Oct. 1. The Lotien sector is the fiercest focus of activity on the Shangliai front. The Japanese are attempting to cut through in order to isolate the Chinese concentrations at Liuho. Each side suffered . thousands of casualties for no particular advantage. Severe fighting continues along the Shanghai-Woosung railway. The Japanese failure to advance northwards from Lotien is due to Chinese concrete forts 100 yards square. They are impervious to artillery fire and to bombing from planes, and are surronnded by barbed wire. The Japanese admit that their losses since September 26 have been 2000 dead and 5000 wounded. There is little material change on any front at Slianghai except Nan-Ksiakow, on the Tieutsin-Pukow railway, where the Chinese, in pnrsuance of their policy of fighting rearguard actions, fell back with confusion. The defence lines on the Shanghai front remain imnervious. A Tokio message says: Advancing over flooded ground iti heavy rain, the Japanese occupied Sangchiayuan, 15 miles north of Techow. The retreating Chinese have broken tlie river embankipents, tbreatening Tientsin with disastrous fioods. The Chinese defence of the Itrner Great Wall is threatened as the result of irregular battles over a wide area. A Hongkong message reports that Japanese planes bombed Canton and Whampoa. The Chinese claim to have brought down two raiders. The Chinese filled the gap in the river boom five miles sbove the Bocca Tigris (portion of the Canton river), imprisoning the British warships Robin and Tarantula, the Ameriean ship Mindanao, the French ship Argus, six British coasters, two Norwegian and two French mercliantmen, and eight river steamers. The step is believed to be due to the appreliension that Japanese destroyers are planning a raid. Japanese troops scaled the walls of Taiehow and drove back riflemen and machine gunners with hand grenades, seized the town and forced the Chinese to abandon the Yenmen Pass. The Japanese are advancing across the seventy-mile plain towards Taiyuanfu, capital of Shansi, which was bombed from the air some days ago. The populaee is already evacuating it. The Japanese front now extends from Taiehow on the west almost to Techow in the east, traversing a large area in the provinces of Shansi, Hopei and part of Shantung.