TAIYUAN FALLS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 39, 9 November 1937, Page 5

TAIYUAN FALLS

-PresS &8?n,

Japanese Success SHANGHAI ATTACK Chinese Compelled to Leave Pootung . BRILLIANT MANOEUVRE

(By Teleerapb-

Copyright. '

(Eeceived 9, 10.50 a.m.) SHANGHAI, Nov. 8. The Japanese claim that they occupiW. Taiyuanfu, capital of tlie Shansi pro▼ince, thia morning. The Domei News Agency at Tokio confirms this claim. Foreign military officials report that, the Chinese have evacuated Pootung, en the Shanghai front. Dozens of Japanese planes are bornbing and machine-gunning the Chinese lines westward of Shanghai, as far as Sungkiang, while the Japanese troops are moving from the south closer to Sungkiang, where the southern end of the Chinese line is situated. Movements are beginning in a Japanese attempt to fulfil the predietion that they "will have isolated the Ghinese from Shanghai before Tuesday jevening. The Japanese are reported to have feut the Sbanghai-Hangchow raiiway yeest of Sunkiang. . Japanese experts have arrived to deyise jneans of destroying the blocking iof the- Yangtse and Whangpoo rivers. Swarms of distressed Chinese refugees are pouring in from Pootung. Japanese mariaes,. by making a surprise landing on the five-mile beach at Chapoo, opened the way for several in* fantry diviaionS' with artillery. The manoeuvre was brilliantly planned and executed • with the aid of 180 ara>ed launches, shrouded by a heavy dawn mist and under the protection of warphips and warplanes. General Yanagawa, ' brought back from politieal retirement, commanded the operation. Commander-in*Chief Matsui controlled the participant nnits. * The Ghinese, in the absence of attacks earlier in the campaign, had withdrawn from excellent trenches and forfcifieations to atrengthen the Shanghai front. The landing parties found the trenches empty and they swept on through a rain-laden gale to the Whangpoo river and formed a strong front between Minchong and Sunkiang, firjng on a British travelling party en route. Tlhey erossed the Whangpoo and advanced to irithin 12 miles of Shanghai, threatening to cut off the Pootung garrison un less the evacuation was successfully eompleted. The Chinese troops' only*contact with Shanghai was to the westward, where the Japanese menace them front and rear, possibly compelling an early xetreat. There is, ihowever, no sign of a sollapse of the Chinese morale.