JAPANESE DRIVE INLAND FROM SHANGHAI

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 45, 16 November 1937, Page 5

JAPANESE DRIVE INLAND FROM SHANGHAI

Press rAssociation-

Tokio Expects Nanking to Seek Truce SHortly

ADVANCE MENACES THE CAPITAL

\ Rv TeleeraDH — ■!

- Copyright

(Received 16, 10.50 a.m.) , LONDON, Nov. 10. The Tolrio cofrespondent of The Times says that the Porilgn Office spokesman announces that the Shanghai military Ktuation is changing so rapidly that offers of good offices to arrange an armistice can shortly be expected. But, he adds, foreign Powers desirjng the restoration of peace should advise China to negotiate with Japan. Everything would depend on Ihe actual character of the proposals. . General Matsui would not be likely to mention armistice terms to Admiral Little without consulting Tokio. Reports to Tolrio indicate the rapid crambling of the Chinese resistance, the Japanese having traversed with nnexpected rapidity the lakes and canals of the great plain west of Shanghai. The Japanese have employed motorised sampans brought from SFapan, complete with civilian hoatmen, and have augmented these With ahandoned Chinese junks. Part of the Japanese landing force from Hangchow Bay has made surprising aquatie progress from SunMng, 35 miles west of Pingwang, where they have put the vital Soochow-Kashing railway. Hundreds of Chinese hoatmen waving homemade Japanese fiags have approached the advancing Japanese, offering to sell or hire their craft to the invaders. iWith the Japanese from the Yangtse-kiang attacking Changshu bn the north, those from Hangchow Bay astride the railway at Pingwang in the sonth and the main body pressing the Chinese against the lakes, the only escape is via the bottleneck connecting Kunshan and Soochow, where, despite \the fortification?, experts believe that the greater part of the Chinese in the Shanghai hinterland will he trapped and annihilated. Already large bodies are eompletely disorganised. • A large Chinese connter-offiensive in sonthern Hopei was deieated. General Snng C-he-yuan, having received^ half a million Sdollars from Nanking, reorganised the Twenty-Ninth Afmy and fcdvanced to Shunteh, with Taming as his base, occupying Jenhsian qtid Manho, but the Japanese drove him out, capturing Taming and Kwanping, with 200 machine-guns and 55 prisoners, and driving the tlefeated troops into the marshes north of the Chang river, where ithey are expected to be trapped. Japanese planes bombing Chinese troops at iWiehsien, an isolated town 40 miles east of ghupen, and indicating a Japanese movement of troops' from North China -to Shanghai, enabled the Chinese temporarliy to recover some lost ground. Naval planes continue the bombardment. The Chinese near the iYellow irver captured the walled town of Kaotang. .A Shanghai message states that, though the Japanese troops 'Have not actually reached Soochow, it was the target for a terrific air-raid involving. the discharge of 700 bombs in 30 hours. The latest advices reaehing the Japanese !War Office show that two columns of Japanese from the Yangtse river are rapidly converging on Soochow, with prospects of trapping masses of ' Chinese troops trying to escape to Nanking from the lake region hehind iShanghai, thus facilitating the capture of Nanking. There are indications that the Chinese are now becoming Semoralised. The Japanese are beginning to take large batches of prisoners. A Shanghai message reports that the Chinese troops driven from Quinsan and falling back on Soochow are being harrassed by Withering Japanese machine-gun fire and bombs. Japanese warships seized 12 Chinese Customs boats anchored In the iWhangpoo river off the French Bund and sent the crews ishore.