JAPAN’S DILEMMA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1938, Page 7

JAPAN’S DILEMMA

THE ARMY’S SLOW PROGRESS IN CHINA RELUCTANCE TO EXTEND COMMITMENTS. HEAVY LOSSES SUSTAINED. (By Telegraph—Press Association). Copyright. (Recd This Day, 10.15 a.m.) LONDON, May 6. The Tokio correspondent of “The Times,” analysing Japan’s dilemma, mentions general impatience at the slowness of the army’s ■ progress in China and the falsification of the notion that fighting would be finished by Christmas. He adds that the tempo of the war has changed and that headquarters are reluctant to extend commitments in China and add hundreds of miles to difficult communications. Young troops from Japan are relieving seasoned troops from Manchuria, who are going south to turn the scale in Shantung and assist in the capture of Suchow. On a conservative estimate the Japanese casualties so far numbered 150,000.

POSITIVE EVIDENCE CHINESE SUCCESS IN RECENT AIR BATTLE BODIES OF 55 JAPANESE AIRMEN (Recd This Day, 10.15 a.m.) LONDON, May 6. The Hankow correspondent of the “Times” says a search resulted in verification of the original Chinese claims of success in the air battle over Hanyang on April 29, in the form of fiftyfive corpses of Japanese airmen, including Squadron-Leader Takahashi, scattered among the wreckage of 12 pursuit planes and nine bombers. The Chinese lost five out of 64 planes, participating. The Chinese capture of Chianglincheng has been confirmed.