'IRRETRIEVABLE DISASTER'

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 18, 14 October 1937, Page 5

'IRRETRIEVABLE DISASTER'

— Per Press Association-

200.000 Defenders Flee Before Japanese Thrust BIG AIR ATTACK IN SHANTUNG

(By Telegraph

-Copyright) .

(Received 14, 2.10 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 13. - The Times Tokio correspondent says: "All news conflrms the itnpression that the Chinese have suffered complete and irretrievable disaster in North Ohina. The defenders of Chihshiachwang, numbering 200,000, have becorae a mass of fugi- • tives. These sufficiently fortunate to be near the railway made off pouthwards, but many thousands have been caught in the Japanese net. The remainder are fleeing through mountain passes into the hilly. inhospitable regions of the Shansi proVinc». "The Japanese have reached a point 40 miles south of Shihchiachwang," the correspondent adds. "Farther southwards, they bombed troop trains at Keikiu and half-mined Shnngteh. "Japanese forces maldng a thrust towards Taiyuan have reached Niangzekuan Pass, on the border between the Hopei and Shansi provinces." A Peiping message reports that fighting has been renewed m the Tientsin-Pukow railway. The Japanese, attaclring the Chinese entrenched at Pingyuan, are now within 40 miles of the Yellow River. "The Japanese carried out the biggest air-raid thus far. They bombed all the important towns of the province of Shantnng and also 23 railway stations, numerous bridges and rail- * way tracks, and sank two Chinese gunboats."